Directed by Martin McDonagh
(R)
***
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“Flawed as it is, Seven Psychopaths isn’t like anything else you’ll see this year, or any other,” said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. Writer/director Martin McDonagh “brushes close to greatness” with this lurid comic fable about an alcoholic writer who’s trying to script a movie called Seven Psychopaths when he becomes entangled with two dognappers and a hot-tempered drug kingpin. A cast of great offbeat actors pitches in, but in his effort to subvert genre clichés for some larger purpose, McDonagh seems to be “fighting against himself every step of the way.” As the crime boss, Woody Harrelson proves “a pleasure to watch,” while Christopher Walken’s pooch thief makes “an extra-special Mad Hatter–party incarnate,” said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. “Despite having to share most of his scenes with a boatload of showboaters,” Colin Farrell “holds the center well” as the frustrated scribe. Yet so many side stories accumulate that the movie eventually “bursts apart at the seams,” said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. It’s still “absurdly entertaining,” mostly because “it gives some of our weirder actors ample room to play.”
