Unique, horrifying thriller which leaves you desperate for a happy ending.

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 2003)

A film that genuinely gets better with repeated viewings, Se7en is a dark, depressing and disturbing tale which simply refuses to give the audience any grain of comfort. Brad Pitt proves for perhaps the first time in his career (forget his over-rated antics in Twelve Monkeys) that he is an edgy, dangerous actor with a good eye for an atypical role. Morgan Freeman consolidates his reputation as a consummate performer, playing the methodical, patient foil to Pitt's volatile man of action.
Detective David Mills (Pitt) joins a new homicide squad in a particularly unappealing and unsafe (un-named) city. He is partnered with William Somerset (Freeman), an old, wise, experienced cop who is just a few days from retirement. The mismatched pair are sent to a crime scene where a fat man has been tied to his dinner table and forced to eat and eat and eat until his stomach bursts. Scrawled on the wall is the word "Gluttony", and when other bodies start turning up alongside messages like "Greed" and "Sloth", they soon realise they are dealing with a serial killer who gets his "inspiration" from the seven deadly sins.
However, Se7en isn't just a straightforward thriller about the hunt for a serial killer. On that level it works brilliantly, but it goes beyond that. The ingenuity begins to show in a scene as powerful as it is unexpected, in which the killer gives himself up with two murders to go. For a moment, it seems that the film has made a terrible mis-step, but in actual fact we are being readied for one of the most fiendishly clever and shocking climaxes imaginable. The film ends on such a cruel note you'll come away from the film wanting to shout "no - that can't be it... it can't end there!" Oh, but it can! What's most disturbing is that when the killer explains his motives, he actually makes a totally valid and agreeable point about why he chose his victims. Imagine how disquieting it is to find that you share a common viewpoint with a character who has done so many sickening things. I don't ever recall seeing a film which provoked such a reaction in me. But then, twisting conventions and reversing cliches is exactly what Se7en aims to do (even the final credits roll upwards rather than downwards). The best mainstream Hollywood film of the '90s.