Seven

"What's in the box?"

Title: Seven
Year of Release: 1995
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Thriller/Crime/Mystery
Rating: 8.5/10

Two detectives, one who is about to retire (Freeman) and one who is only at the beginning of his career (Pitt) begin investigating a case where the killer's murders relate to the seven deadly sins.

Ever since I was young I've been a fan of this film, and because I was quite young when I first saw this a lot of the scenes in this film have stuck with me, like with some other relatively disturbing movies. Well most of the scenes directly involving each of the murders are disturbing, because I've always just imagined how terrible it would be if put in their shoes. There is no doubt this is a graphic film, but not exploitive like in the often compared but far inferior film series Saw. The graphic nature of the crimes help glue them to your mind, and really make each of the murders so much more disturbing, it's not so much the blood you may see at the scene, but the thought of what physical or mental suffering they would of went through, it's always far more affective in film when they can translate the disturbing content of the film mentally rather than show it in full detail with graphic scenes throughout, but as I said, this doesn't exploit the murders, it has the right amount of violence. But be warned, I can imagine some people might not like the level of violence.

I've read of people disliking the ending, thinking it's the weakest point, or a let down. I really cannot disagree more to be honest. Sure, to an extent I can see why, but to me, the ending is so affective and so memorable, and it's easily the most memorable part of the film, and quite a powerful ending. Hell, the ending was half the reason I decided to watch this film for maybe the fifth or so time. I was both excited to see the events unfold and the intense ending, but I was also nervous about it too, because I knew what was going to happen, I don't want to give anything away, but I loved it.

Freeman doesn't disappoint, as usual doing a great job, but also playing a rather familiar character, an intelligent and quite wise man. Though Freeman does a great job, he is out shun by Pitt's performance. This is the film I think which made people respect Pitt and actually consider him a serious actor, one to keep your eye on. He plays an arrogant, ambiguous and young detective. Though he knows the basics and considers himself a veteran detective, he doesn't fool Somerset (Freeman). From his general language, constantly using swear words, Somerset being a more curious, calm but harder man, Mills (Pitt) is an incredibly interesting character. Pitt does a great job, with numerous one liners of sorts, not the sort you see in Die Hard or the like, but great human words, not action catch phrases. Mills general inexperience is quickly shown in just one of his first scenes, involving the first murder, with the obese man, he mainly just looks at the standard things, obviously the man who is dead, simple things around him, sort of mimicking Somerset who is truly investigating every detail, Somerset is far more persistent but far less confident.

The is a great well rounded film that has a similar dark feeling to that of Fincher's other film, Fight Club. This probably best succeeds in the thriller aspect as I was almost always excited or edgy, a few times I even jumped, one scene, which has and will forever keep giving me a fright, the sloth one, every time it gets me. Now obviously I don't want to spoil anything, though I'm so eager to discuss other things about the film, but it's just too easy to spoil crucial elements of this film, so for those who haven't checked this out already and don't mind a bit of violence, you definitely want tot see this. Especially those who liked Fight Club, because as I mentioned earlier, they both have a similar feel to it, the whole darkness present in both, and also some parts of Zodiac (another film by Fincher) are shown in Se7en, if you ask me at least.