Seven Very Deadly Sins

Rating: 7/10 (18 June 2008)

This journey through the mind of a religiously motivated serial killer who kills his victims based on his interpretation of the Seven Deadly Sins is a bit uneven in places, but builds very nicely to its ultimate climax, and I found that the last 20-30 minutes of the movie were very effective as a closure. The open question as the movie came to its end was how the murders depicting envy and wrath were going to be committed. That's done in a quite shocking and horrific way. I can't say it was a surprise - I guessed what was in the box addressed to Mills as soon as the box was introduced - but still it was a grand finale (if one can call it that) to a pretty decent movie.
The performances from Morgan Freeman as Detective Somerset and Kevin Spacey as "John Doe" were especially effective - which they should have been, since both were pretty standard characters for the actors. Somerset was the experienced, street-wise detective who dispensed advice freely, and Spacey was the - well - kind of spacey, quirky character that he pulls off so well in so many movies. Brad Pitt was less effective as the young Detective Mills - Somerset's partner. He wasn't bad, but somehow neither his performance nor the character connected with me. Gwyneth Paltrow was underused as an actress, although her character (if not Paltrow herself) plays a central role in the end.
The movie seemed to have a bit of a "Silence of the Lambs" feel to it, with the serial killer angle and the mind games being played with the police, and the real attention getter through most of the movie was to find out how the deadly sins were going to be represented by the murders that were being committed. I was a little concerned that this had the potential to turn into little more than a gore-fest, but that didn't happen. There are some gruesome shots of the victims, but for the most part the focus was on the psychological dimensions of the story. All in all I thought this was a very good movie; "Seven" gets a 7 from me.