The A-Listers Talk About Se7en (1995)
From the couple who see a lot of movies because they have AMC A-List.
Patrick: We've been wanting to do another edition of The A-Listers for a while, but no movie has seemed suitable. We were gonna do Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (because we reviewed the second film in one of the earliest editions of this column), but we thought it was disappointing. Then, we thought about Babygirl, but we didn't feel like had much to say other than, "Yep, it's sexy!" And much to Taylor's dismay, we didn't even see Kraven the Hunter. So Taylor, we've ended up reviewing another rerelease, something we end up doing from time to time.
Taylor: It's been a slow movie theatre time for us as we've been traveling, celebrating the holidays, and catching up on the year's must-sees from home. But we ventured out into the cold, hours before a massive snowstorm hit, and saw the IMAX rerelease of Se7en, which I had never seen officially. Unofficially, I saw The Little Things (2021), and the entire time Patrick kept muttering to himself (and therefore me), "THEY'RE JUST RIPPING SE7EN OFF! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" so I was slightly worried it would feel stale having seen a rip, but that couldn't be further from the truth!
Patrick: I feel like there's no real way to talk about this movie and its legacy without totally spoiling it, so here's your spoiler warning. Taylor, I must say, you are (despite being my very best friend) an awful movie-watching companion because you're a very good twist-guesser! What's in the baaaaaaaax!
Taylor: It's one of those things that is fun for like 10 total minutes of my life, and truly an Achilles heel all other times. Not to sound pick-me, but I want to be surprised! Something surprise me! Sadly, this was not that. Usually, I think ill on a movie for not surprising me, but it's hard to do that with Se7en when it's just so good.
Patrick: I first saw this when I was way too young and my mom showed me the DVD. It blew my mind. It felt so depraved. Like the world was hopeless. As Morgan Freeman's character recites at the end, "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part." I could not believe that a police procedural could feel so different and so sickening and so dark. On paper, this is just another movie about cops solving a murder. It's The Little Things! But Fincher gotta Fincher...
Taylor: Fincher has a pretty hit-or-miss reputation for me. I didn't care for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Killer was fine. I personally couldn't finish Fight Club (the gore was a little too realistic for me, sorry!). But I loved Gone Girl. Zodiac is great. And Se7en is truly unlike any other thriller I've seen. I haven't seen The Social Network (kind of untrue, I saw it in theatres when I was a kid and walked out because I was bored. Oh, the irony considering I now work in social media...), so, to me, this feels like the grand opus of his work. Would you say it's your favorite?
Patrick: I would, but Zodiac puts up a fight. And we need to watch The Social Network. And one day my mother will finally convince me to watch Mindhunter. There's so much to like here. It's got great ambiance (this everywhere and nowhere feeling; not to mention the rain), a fantastically eerie score from Howard Score, and it's doing this cop-drama thing at the highest level. And the performances! There was a period of time when I would have said that Kevin Spacey was my favorite actor. And then it was Brad Pitt. This movie's cast did not age well...
Taylor: No, no it did not. And while I don't want to spend too much time praising the work of actors we already know are good, and who happen to be bad people, I have to talk about Brad Pitt because he was my favorite performance to watch. Burn After Reading, which you showed me a couple of years ago, really changed how I viewed him as an actor. He is as goofball as they come. Despite the seemingly neverending heaviness of Se7en, he finds moments of real humor, which begs the question: did Andrew Kevin Walker write this character with humor or did he find the humor in it? I really just can't get over what an effortless performance he gives. Some people have just got it...and then some people lose it...
Patrick: I think something that makes Se7en (that's both really fun and really annoying to type out) so great is that we ended up with so many copycats after this. I think that's probably best exampled in the performances. Once you notice that Brad Pitt is a "stuff actor," you can never unsee it. Kevin Spacey was so good at this that he just thought he would do it again and again and again for 20 more years. And Morgan Freeman does Morgan Freeman like no one else. And, oh yeah, there were so many The Little Things-es that just saturated the market. Freeman would even turn to play Alex Cross in two movies that are the paperbacks of thriller films - probably because they were based on James Patterson novels.
Taylor: While I wish I could have had a jaw-dropping moment when it came to the contents of the baaaaaaaax, I haven't felt that thrilled at the movies in a while. Thanks for dragging me out, Patrick!
Patrick: Let's wrap with one of the best quotes from the movie, "If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil, I mean if he's Satan himself, that might live up to our expectations, but he's not the devil. He's just a man."
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