Style wins over substance but that's OK. This is a great film.

Rating: Null/10 (29 June 2013)

Se7en has a lot of things going for it: A talented director and two among the best American actors of the past 20 years (Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, the second at the start of his career). Furthermore, the plot is interesting enough: two detectives (Somerset and Mills) the first just before retirement with his much younger colleague try to resolve a number of murders perpetrated by a serial killer somewhere in a north American city (looks like Philadelphia but could be Chicago, it does not matter).
I think the strength of the movie lies with the interaction of these two characters who are so different from each other and see their job from very different perspective. Both are very good professionals but Mills is more ambitious and sees the murders as a puzzle to be solved and does not spend much time trying to understand the killer's motivations and mindset. Whereas Somerset is more resigned and perhaps pessimistic about the efficiency of the police force to fight and contain the evil of the serial killer and the crime in a big metropolitan city like the one the action takes place.
Finally, I thought that the movie tried to impose a visual style, e.g. the way of showing detailed images of crimes and human depravity and torture that made me feel uncomfortable at times. If the director's message is that crime is bad because it looks 'bad' visually then I have some reservations.