"Se7en" Takes The Viewer Inside A World Relentlessly Threatened By Danger. An Indisputable Example Of A Modern Masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (12 April 2007)

Back in '95 David Fincher released a film named Se7en, following his cruelly underrated '93 box-office-disaster Alien3 (view the director's cut and you might understand what I mean). In the sense of the American film industry, Se7en was the film which established Fincher's talent and from there on in he had more freedom on the films he wanted to create.
Se7en is a dark tale of morality, depicting two cops who both find themselves stuck inside a deadly game. One of the cops is Sommerset (Morgan Freeman), a man planning to retire from the job and the environment of which he deems unfit and too bleak to live in, a place where he believes "apathy" is welcomed. The other cop, Mills (Brad Pitt) has recently required his detective badge and has moved to the city of Chicago to help bring "light" to the city, while building a "hero" reputation. Both detectives have different views on the squalid world they are surrounded by and both use different methods when performing a task. The detectives soon find themselves obsessed with capturing a vicious criminal who is terrifying the area with bizarre "deadly sins" killings and leaving puzzling and mostly unusable evidence at the scene of the crimes.
The narrative which Se7en follows is one that is structured with such precision that you become apart of the film. The viewer becomes grasped by the story's compelling nature and the manipulative unanswered questions. Yet, here lies one of the few faults with Se7en, this being the film's tendency to lose the connectivity of scenes. At times this can detract the viewer, while also making subplots feel cut-off and halted abruptly. Although, this is not too significantly noticeable, it is still there and something which stops the film deserving a definitive "masterpiece" status.
The film still surges with its constant excitement and attention to detail, making it a film of such finesse that it remarkably works as a delicate counter-piece to the horrific story being told. I consider the pivotal scene in Se7en to be the chase scene, the scene whereby the viewer captures their first glimpse of John Doe (with the exclusion of the infamous opening-credits). It is a scene where my adrenaline started pumping, a scene so expertly thought out with such visceral realism, taking the characters to their most primitive of instincts. This is where the set-pieces come in; the set-pieces in Se7en are built with glaring authenticity and unsettling detail, retaining the disturbing exuberance the film follows.
Se7en is a film that goes leaps and bounds for the modern "cops vs. criminals" genre; it provides a level of rarely matched excitement and adrenaline-pumping emotion. It is a film so genuine that by the end of the film you will have built up a bond with the two protagonists. It is remarkable just how exact and precise the film is in its style, atmospherically edited (with the exception of the connectivity) and wonderfully layered offering much analysis for the viewer. One of the film's optimum features are the multi-dimensional characters, the characters of Se7en are ones who you care for and are characters who have robust personality to study. It is impossible not to adore the film's appetite for its characters, such as the clashing viewpoints, offering the viewer to make their own personal judgement and also the character's reactions to the repulsive behaviour which has engulfed the city. All this is due to how astonishingly rigorous and convincing the performances are, the actors all develop their own persona and you have to take note of the smaller details to gain a true understanding of the characters.
Se7en is a film providing sour, surfaced-toned noir to enable the merging of absorbing grittiness and "lucid" fantasy, etched with painful realism. The film details every dark corner, capturing a feel of vulnerability and the general taste of fear through highly alluring, yet horribly detached environments, ultimately providing a cold and painfully evocative atmosphere. The cinematography is rigorous, while still being very open in its wonderfully "edgy" style. The camera is fixated on the tiniest detail, capturing the emotion on the lens through the exposed characters in wide, yet horribly tight environments. The make-up is just another example of the laborious amount of time and pre-development which was spent on creating the film's "gothic fairytale" manner. Even with all the technical brilliance, it is still the acting which remains the film's finest feature.
More importantly than anything Se7en remains one of the finest films in its genre, providing a relief from your typically simplistic Hollywood film. Instead the film offers a depressing morality tale which motivates the viewer into thinking about what will occur next and giving you taste of the horrific crimes detectives become obsessed with solving. Ultimately, few films can succeed in gripping you as much as the inexplicable brilliance of Se7en.