Less Proves More

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2013)

I didn't really hold out much hope for SEVEN . It's a film that's almost 20 years old and one that I frequently miss usually on purpose when it's shown on television . I've always thought David Fincher was painfully over rated . " Best director of his generation " claim many people which is patently untrue if you've seen a film by Danny Boyle or Darren Aronfsky or Ang Lee . The premise itself doesn't inspire optimism being a couple of mismatched police partners trying to track down a serial killer who is motivated by the seven deadly sins . I almost believed I was going to be watching a reworking of the Vincent Price camp classic horror movie THEATRE OF BLOOD without the funny bits so I went in with very low expectations
What Fincher has done is construct a thriller that is dialogue driven with a sense of portent dread . It'd be very easy , perhaps too easy , to shock the audience with gore and startle moments . Instead the director resists this very easy temptation and put the audience in the shoes of detectives Somerset and Mills so this is a rare thriller where the audience join up the dots when the detectives do . The film is greatly helped by Morgan Freeman who was probably Hollywood's most effective character actor at this point but both amazingly Pitt and Spacey hold their own against this acting legend
In short this is a very good gloomy thriller with very dark cinematography and very dark subject matter . The fact that there's so much understatement to it is refreshing and nearly 20 years after it first hit the big screen it remains director David Fincher's best work