If Lethal Wepon Was Realistic

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2015)

I think the greatest strength of Se7en is its opening twenty minutes. The first twenty minutes makes you think that you're in for a decent, gritty, detective movie. But nothing worth the 250. It's sort of what Summerset and Mills thinks they're getting into. They think that this is going to be a hard case, but not scarring. They keep their heads high and don't think much of it. But after those twenty minutes, it becomes a tale of self worth, moral ambiguity, guilt and everything that'd usually be fluff in any other movie, turned into a disturbing look into what we can and have become as a species.
The film is hard to write about because it does everything in a bad buddy cop movie and makes it realistic. How would Mel Gibson and Danny Glover function outside of the job? How would the world react to absurd James Bond like plans? How would a basically criminal master mind make his plans make sense? The film is like a satire that went all of the way. It makes everything that'd be nonsense in any other film, and I mean any other film, work. The dialogue works, the acting, the camera, the story, the plan, the makeup, everything works. And the best part is, you don't expect it to. By all means, this film should've been awful, and it's brilliant.
This the first time I'm truly recommending a movie. Unlike a lot of good movies, this one you want to suggest to others. It's hard to recommend something like The Good, the Bad, the Ugly or Citizen Kane because of one reason or another. It's too long, some things don't make sense, but Se7en is a film that's enjoyable and for reasons that can't be explained. It's a watchable movie.
The only problem is also the greatest strength. The first twenty minutes are a bit, well, "slow" because they're necessary and without it the film wouldn't work on an emotional or logical level. But, even then, it so much more watchable than a lot of other first twenty minutes. It's a "good movie" no matter what.
If nothing else, everything about this film WORKS. What that means, I still don't know. But it's a working movie and make of that what you will. Please, watch this movie.