Martin McDonagh must be a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, because his movie Seven Psychopaths feels quite a lot like a Tarantino film. When I first saw the preview for it, I immediately thought of Pulp Fiction. The actual movie really shows its Tarantino roots, but McDonagh steers the movie in its own direction.
Marty (Colin Farrell) is a screenwriter trying to complete his latest script, titled Seven Psychopaths. His best friend, Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell), kidnaps dogs for a living with his friend Hans (Christopher Walken), and then return the dogs to their owners to collect the reward money. The Shih Tzu really hits the fan, however, when Billy and Hans kidnap Bonnie, the beloved dog of gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson), forcing Billy, Marty, and Hans to get the hell out of Dodge for a while. To pass time, they work on Marty's screenplay. The psychopaths include a man who used to be in the Viet Cong, a couple that murdered murderers, and even a Quaker (who probably has the best story of them all). Overall, the characters (both in the movie proper and Marty's screenplay) are very intriguing, and the film itself tends to be very self-referential. Walken is absolutely brilliant as Hans, while Rockwell as Billy is absolutely insane.
Offbeat, unpredictable, and very entertaining, Seven Psychopaths is a difficult movie to classify. It's like Pulp Fiction, but with a little more action/gunplay. The only other movie that I can really offer up for comparison is The Big Lebowski (you'd have to watch both Lebowski and Psychopaths to understand). This is definitely one movie that isn't to be missed.
Rating: 91/100
