Uncomfortably convention-defying psychological thriller

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2016)

This high-class thriller from David Fincher is well done, tense and rather gory; and achieves a great deal with its high-quality camera-work, primarily (though not quite solely) in hammering home the overriding message over a great chunk of the film that New York is the New Sodom and Gomorrah and possibly even Hell on Earth. It rains there and is grey all the time, plenty of sin is committed, and even formerly-good people are ground down by it, turned to evil or at best becoming apathetic as the only other possible defence. This kind of apathy is also at least to some extent afflicting our key character, William Somerset, a detective on the verge of retiring played by Morgan Freeman. Nevertheless, this character is not especially popular among fellow cops, given that he asks more questions than they do, is more thoughtful (and far better-read), and he still tries that bit harder.
Still less jaded and jaundiced is what will soon come to be Somerset's new partner, if only for a short period, the newly-arrived Detective Mills, as played by Brad Pitt, who has decided to bring with him from upstate a couple of dogs and a still-untainted wife played by Gwyneth Paltrow. They are now living in an apartment they were conned into buying by being invited to view and visit between the times at which Subway trains go thundering by, shaking the dwelling to its very foundations.
Rather quickly, Somerset and Mills come up against a methodically cunning and well-read psychopathic killer bent on putting paid to NY's sinners, turning their sins against them in the grossest and most sadistic of ways, but also in a manner that he considers entirely right and appropriate. While 5 sins are demonstrated and avenged in the Big Apple, the last two shift out to a quite non-New York-looking out-of-town locality, in which the Sun is suddenly shining. This seems a somewhat surprising tactic, given what had gone before. What is more (and unlike in most films of this kind you have ever seen) the last part takes place with the killer in handcuffs in front of our eyes, and thus revealed to us as "John Doe" (yes, really), played in the slightly spaced-out way that only Kevin Spacey can quite manage. Furthermore, the detectives and forensic guys have already taken we the audience on a tour through Doe's roomy if cluttered and weirder-than-weird apartment, hence that traditional element of such films we already have well behind us.
While much or most of the story summed up as above may sound a bit fantastic, enigmatic, apocalyptic horror-like or even sci fi-ish in tone, the greater part of the film looks (pretty much or at least ostensibly) like a conventional enough cop movie-cum-crime shocker, which leaves the in-your-face ending more of a surprise. In fact, "surprise" is the wrong word, since we might indeed have anticipated what we get, but presumably just felt that no film maker is actually going to do this to us ... and then he does.
This defying of convention established for hundreds of movies of this kind over decades has an amazingly disarming effect, and one is left a little speechless. This is only delivered more strongly by (Freeman's exquisite acting of) Somerset's behaviour at this point. Suffice it to say that the usual circumstance of the villain realising "it's all over" is UTTERLY turned on its head here.
BUT...
while this approach may indeed seem shocking, innovative and even high art, the impact is so great that it does actually spoil the film a bit, at least for this very seasoned cinema-goer and film-watcher. A spring pulled beyond its ability to rebound ceases to function as a spring, and maybe here we have destroyed the cop-thriller genre by stretching it too far out of shape. Personally speaking, I found myself asking what the point of what had gone before had really been, especially where certain slightly-less-grim scenes had been concerned. Added to that is the uncomfortable idea - put into words by Doe himself - that he is somehow fighting back against omnipresent sin and evil (of course by doing still-greater evil himself).
While I am usually pretty merciless with spoilers, I have - as is pretty clear - eschewed giving too much away here, because those with a reasonably strong stomach are certainly advised to give this film a go, in the unlikely event that anybody interested out there has not already done so. But the piece "only" gets a 9 here from me, because maybe there are some things you just can't do with a film genre, at least without having to pay some price for doing so...