Literate, Engaging Genre Piece

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2006)

Nicely plotted and well-written script, suitably ominous score, good performances all around.
I think the seven deadly sins were codified in the sixth century by Pope Gregory I. Keven Spacey, as the serial killer (there seems to be no end of them), takes them seriously enough to track down good examples of each and execute them according to their cardinal traits. For instance, he ties an obese man into a chair and force feeds him until he is the size of the puking man in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life," and then kicks him until he explodes. The older I get and the more the flesh sags, the less amusing I find this concept.
The murders, by the way, are pretty disgusting, what with the darkness lighted by tiny candles, the flies buzzing around, the mutilated and decomposing corpses, the severed body parts, and all that.
Particularly horrifying are the last two of the seven killings. One involves an excess of envy and the other of anger. I don't want to give much more away, but they involve Spacey himself and one of the two detectives (Freeman and Pitt). The incident is a most unexpected twist, and a plausible one. That's what I meant in describing this as well written. As an unintended bonus there is an exchange between the detectives, in 1995. Freeman has just bribed an FBI man for a list of library records. Certain books are flagged and when someone checks them out, the users records are fed into the Bureau's data base. Pitt: "Wait a minute now. How is this legal?" Freeman: "Legal, illegal, these terms don't apply here."
Freeman and Pitt are the usual mismatched cops at the beginning, but this is not a mismatched buddy movie by any means. Half-way through and their few differences are resolved in a reasonable manner.
Pitt doesn't do a bad job, and Morgan Freeman is outstanding as usual. What a fine actor he is. Ordinarily he's rock solid but then watch him as a murderous pimp in "Street Smart" to get an idea of his range. And the movie simply would not be all that it is without Gwyneth Paltrow. She is a gangly blond with features so delicate that a viewer gets the impression that the slightest kiss on her cheek might leave a memorial bruise. That's important, for reasons I won't go into. The scene in the cafe in which she helplessly asks a helpless Freeman for advice about her secret pregnancy could have been either cloying or unnecessary if it had been written clumsily, but it was not. We can feel the actors meshing like gear wheels during the conversation.
If I had a problem it was with the lights. I wish someone had bothered to turn them on. Okay, a murder scene in a shabby apartment could be dark. But why is the PRECINCT STATION as gloomy as a Bohemian bar? I realize this underlighting is fashionable -- damn "The X Files" -- but it's getting tiresome to see people running around during action scenes carrying flashlights. While I'm complaining I might as well mention that the score, though brooding, is loud, obtrusive, and generic. Under the opening credits it passes through the obtrusive barrier into irritating, as are the credits themselves, which are shaky and resemble the deliberate but sloppy scrawl of a kindergardener. Every scene is underlined by edgy music except one in which Freeman pokes around in the library, when the composer uses the rapturous Air on a G String, the most accessible piece Bach ever wrote. The very well done library scene reminded me of college one hundred years ago when students had ideals. During exam week the student radio station would play nothing but suitable classical music. You could walk across the quad and hear Bach coming from two dozen open windows, a 24.0 sound system.
That's a minor carp though. The is a genuinely good example of the genre. Another thriller about a serial murderer, but a good example still.