Pretty good, lets say se7en out of ten

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2004)

Although this is a good and very watchable movie, it does have some major flaws. There are three obvious ones: firstly, the ending, which is just so predictable. Kevin Spacey as the serial killer announces that there are still two victims to be accounted for and it comes as no surprise when it is revealed who those two people are. Secondly, Gwyneth Paltrow. I've never really rated her in any movie that I've seen and here she gives another bland performance. Thirdly, the scenes midway through the movie where Pitt, Paltrow and Freeman are getting to know each other over dinner, really drag.
OK, criticisms out of the way. The real plus points of this film are the performances of Spacey/Freeman and also the dark menacing atmosphere that is created throughout the course of the movie. Spacey is one of the best Hollywood actors around, almost in the Tom Hanks class, and here he gives a very restrained but menacing performance as the bad guy. Morgan Freeman always gives the same type of laid-back, calm, controlled performance and here it is used to great effect. This probably ranks alongside The Shawshank Redemption as his finest appearance on celluloid. Brad Pitt and (especially) Gwyneth Paltrow look a litle bit out of their depth among these two fine actors and they don't really convince.
The plot is essentially just another serial-killer-picking-ingenious-ways-to-kill-people situation, however it is refreshingly free of pointless CGI effects and has little in the way of gore, which is nice because the movie has to get by on atmosphere and dialogue, something for which Hollywood has not always tried in major films. Among the killings are a man who is forced to eat until he (almost literally) bursts and one or two others, many of which also reveal clues deliberately left by Kevin Spacey. It's an intelligent film which really would have been a 9/10 film had the major flaws which I mentioned been addressed.