Words cannot describe the unmitigated nastiness

Rating: 1/10 (30 April 2008)

I know there are many reasons to like or dislike any movie, and that most people who rate a movie 1 or 0 simply don't 'get it'. I feel a great sympathy for those who cannot find anything to praise in a film. Se7en is not an especially bad movie; it creates and maintains a particular atmosphere most of the way through; it is deliberately grungy, nasty, and brutal. The extreme lack of lighting serves a purpose - Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now seems bathed in floodlights by comparison - and the film achieves its ends efficiently enough.
I am relatively OK with gore and violence (either on-screen or implied.) Many plots have holes, many movies get very clunky at the end, many actors share features with cardboard, and Se7en is no exception. If this film were in any way critical of the human capacity for the sheer unbridled brutality which it portrays, I might forgive it. If it had any redeeming qualities whatever, I like to think I would be prepared to try to acknowledge them, however grudgingly. Many dark movies manage to evince a knowing smile at some point, or succeed through technical brilliance or gripping acting.
But I came out of this film wanting to throw myself under the nearest bus. It was as if everyone involved with the making of this film had spat (I think I spelled that correctly) in my seat. My experience of this film exactly matched that of another reviewer: it raped my soul. What worries me most is that there are quite so many positive reviews for this movie. I think this would have been one of H.P. Lovecraft's favourites, since the guiding hand behind it is most obviously that of Cthulu.