Unlucky number

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2003)

"Se7en" was the serial killer movie of the week at the time of its release. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt--apparently representing Reason and Passion, respectively--are cops on the trail of a serial killer. Kevin Spacey plays the killer as a Hannibal Lecter wannabe with a vengeful-angry-God complex: he bumps his victims off in ways that reflect the Seven Deadly Sins. Not a new idea; Vincent Price made two similarly-constructed movies in the '70s: "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," in which the inspiration is the ten curses of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus; and "Theater of Blood," in which Shakespeare's plays provide the motifs. ("Se7en" makes a nod in the direction of its predecessors by mentioning the "pound of flesh" associated with one of the murders.)
The difference is that the Price movies were jet-black comedies, while "Se7en" is a straightforward suspense thriller, and a relentlessly grim, gray, dark, rain-soaked one at that. It's technically well-made and unusually literate, drawing themes from Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, and medieval theology. And there's a strong echo of Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground": when the killer's lair is located, it's found to contain 2000 handwritten notebook journals of 250 pages each. (Quibbles: if he writes that much, when does he find time to do anything else... such as plan and execute fiendishly clever crimes? Also, we're told that none of the journals or entries are dated. As one who has kept a daily journal for ten years, I find that unlikely, especially since the killer is ultimately revealed to be even more, shall we say, detail-oriented than I am.)
The movie's ending (which I won't reveal here) is distressingly downbeat--and surprisingly so, as well. It leaves a nasty aftertaste. It could be argued that anything less would've been a cop-out, but it still was about as entertaining as a sucker punch. "The Silence of the Lambs" left us with Lecter on the loose, but at least there was salvation (the girl was rescued), redemption (the lambs were silenced), and retribution (the killer was dispatched without the incidental destruction of anyone else). By contrast, "Se7en," which offers none of the above, is easy to admire, but hard to enjoy.