"We see a sin on every Street corner, and we tolerate it"

Rating: 10/10 (16 August 2001)

Okay, I'm sick of this whole, "style over substance" thing that everybody is talking about. What are you trying to imply, that the film was made without a script - that they made it up as they went along... It seems critics don't take the time to decide why they hate films anymore, it's a lot easier to say "style over substance", film is a visual medium for heavens sake. No other director has take the amount of flack for this than David Fincher, he's every critics whipping boy - and why, because he began his career making music videos, because he made Alien 3 and it failed to live up to "lord" Cameron's Aliens (1986)... It's just plain laziness - for god's sake take the time to analyse the film before you write it off as a failure.
Now onto the film. Se7en is basically the buddy cop movie, except the cops in question aren't really buddies... It's also a serial killer movie, but it has the guts to break every rule about serial killer movies you thought you knew. I love the questions this film raises, and if you're one of the people who I was addressing at the start of this review you'll probably be scratching you're heads - but yes, this film has a powerful message.
Se7en deals with society, it deals with something that we see everyday but most of us turn our backs to it. You only have to open a news paper and you'll see a list of terrible atrocities that have befallen people, horrendous things happening everyday, and we just turn our backs, in the words of John Doe (Kevin Spacey - and yes I got my I.D. from his character) "we see a sin on every street corner, and we tolerate it, we tolerate it because it's common"... Every word delivered by Doe is of importance, it should sound clichÃ©d but Spacey's delivery is so great that it becomes truthful, he say's later on, after describing why he chose to kill who he killed (Only in a world this sh*ty, can you say these people are innocent and keep a straight face"... This is all serious stuff, and I think one of the reasons people dismiss the film is because these are issues that they are not ready to face.
As everyone knows and comments on, is that Fincher is one of the most visually talented directors working today, and despite what people have said the gloomy low-key lighting and constant rain work brilliantly, creating an atmosphere, I must also point out Fincher's use of sound design, he and the sound engineer Ren Klyce evoke a sense of urban detachment whenever they can, the scenes with Summerset (Morgan Freeman) in his apartment, the violent domestic arguments audible in the other rooms. All of this is not Fincher trying to say, "Hey look how clever I am" but to draw the audience in. He needs those shadows to create suspense, to distract the eye of the viewer to something else, to lure them into relaxation.

Yet still so many people have a problem with this film, they overlook the fact that it is a gripping detective thriller, or that the characters are 100% believable... There too concerned with what they call the sadistic gruesomeness that Fincher revels in. Well excuse me, but I though this was an adult film, this could have been a whole lot more violent, the murders are implied, you see only the after effects... If you have a problem with having to imagine things in films, then stop going to see R rated movies, stick to the family films.
There's so much more I want to say about this film, I don't think it gets the credit it deserves... And to all those people who have called it depressing - yes it is and so it should be, the world is not all sugar sprinkles and candy canes... And thank you to Fincher and writer Andrew Kevin Walker for giving us something a little darker, for as Summerset states at the end of the film... "Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, the world is a fine place, and worth fighting for - I agree with the second half"...
A Modern Masterpiece 10/10