Thriller, mystery, meditation on morality, buddy cop, garbage crime: Se7en is all of that and more

Se7en - David Fincher - 1995

★★★★★-I've written and thought about this movie more than any I've ever seen. It's not often that a film changes my behavior profoundly. Books have done this, but with film, it is rare. Director David Fincher has done it twice, or at least gotten me on that path. With Fight Club, the seeds of anti-consumerism were planted. With Se7en, it was anti-moralism. It's telling that Fincher made two of the best films of this century (Zodiac and The Social Network) and those flicks might not be in his top two all-time, at least for me anyway. 

Gist of it is retiring police Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) teams up with the newly transferred David Mills (Brad Pitt) for his last case before retirement. As they delve into the investigation, they uncover a series of intricate and sadistic murders. It becomes apparent that they are facing a methodical serial killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), who selects his victims based on their seven deadly sin, killing one each day. As the suspense intensifies and they get closer to the final day, Somerset forms an unexpected bond with Mills' pregnant wife, Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is deeply concerned about raising her child in a city plagued by such chilling crime.

That's the surface, though Se7en is a hard film to describe. It's got some gallows humor, but it is dark, and deeply disturbing. Mills indeed has his moments. His wife Tracy says “he is the funniest man (she's) ever met.” His deadly sin, in my opinion, is fashion related though. His ties are truly atrocious. One has a basketball going through a hoop on it. This seems to be his favorite tie. Also, at one point I caught him wearing his watch over his shirt cuff. This is the eighth deadly sin, by the by.

More than anything, this is a dualistic film that eventually morphs into nihilism. There is good and evil, until there isn't. There is extreme good in Tracy, and extreme evil in Doe. 

It's an odd couple cop movie, as well, which highlights this further. One an old, African-American detective just shy of retirement. A cynic that has seen it all. He is methodical, experienced, learned, and patient. He's a philosophy. The other a young, idealistic Caucasian that calls himself Serpico with just a little irony. He is hotheaded, impulsive, and immature. He's new to this city, a Hell-on-earth. They do not get along. But slowly, they become friends. That friendship presumably ends, however, as both are stripped of their meaning just before the credits roll. 

The city they fight crime changes everyone in this world. One of the weird details of the movie is all the unhomed people shuffling around in nearly every scene. Pretty much dystopian. Rains constantly. We are constantly reminded that this world is not “a fine place.” It's a bizzaro version of LA with Virgil showing Dante the ropes. The other cops here, for the most part, don't care at all. If a child witnessed his father murder his mother, it “doesn't concern us,” a detective tells Somerset. He's just happy it's an open and shut case. Tells Somerset that the other “dicks” are going to be happy when he retires, asking them such things. There are more examples of this. Another cop doesn't check vitals. SWAT, the only ones who seem to enjoy what they do other than Mills, relish the violence they impose on the lost souls. It's just a part of this world, the police sort of have to move around these people they supposed to protect, mostly just treating them like they aren't there. 

John Doe, himself, is a dualistic figure as a divinely inspired serial-killer. Doe is a truly evil POS. One of the great villains of all-time. (On a personal level, he ruined marble composition notebooks for me! My first 25 or so journals looked a lot like these, usually duct taped after a while. Got tired of the comparison and now carry Moleskins. Better for reporters anyway. [Speaking of. I used to be a crime reporter. You'd be surprised how close you can get to a crime scene, and how quickly with scanners in every newsroom. And by the by, no reporter has money to pay for information, let alone to pay “well” for it. One of just a few nits I'm able to pick. But if you don't know, you don't know.]) With his death, that dualism is ended, of course, as he becomes nothing. But legacy was what he was after. 

Doe's “work” is kind of performance art. Like the worst kind of art, in general, he simultaneously projects his self-loathing and sense of superiority with an all-out, full-court press of an attention seeking spectacle. Getting people to pay attention, though, is indeed tough. Gotta hit them over the head with a sledgehammer. I'm not sure Doe doesn't mean that literally. When serial-killers barely shock people anymore, in Doe's words, “in a world this sick,” you've really got to do something spectacularly disturbing to become part of the zeitgeist. For every Gacy, you have a Randy Kraft. Every Dahmer, a Arthur Shawcross. Every LISK, a Lonnie Franklin. So forth. Really gotta swing for the fences, I guess. 

His work is one of poetic justice. The concept has been around forever. Hence the “pound of flesh” from one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, Merchant of Venice, probably his most ironic play, which is considered a comedy (I wrote about that, too, a couple of times in college). Goes back even farther than that, though. For example, “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death,” is about as ironic as it gets, working on multiple levels even. 

It's also pretty much how we view Hell culturally in the West. While it's existed likely since the beginning of our days dabbling in concepts of an afterlife, Dante is the one that really fleshed it out. His epic masterpiece, Divine Comedy, the most important work ever written in my opinion, is all about justice and retribution. The souls he sees in Inferno and Purgatorio receive their punishments or cleansings in a manner that either mirrors or starkly contrasts their sins. Called “contrapasso”, it is a word derived from Latin “contra” and “patior”, meaning "suffer the opposite.” Its comes up in literature, theology, and popular culture constantly ever since. Some examples off the top of my head: The Faerie Queene, A Christmas Carol, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, so forth. 

My personal favorite depiction, beside Se7en, of course, is from The Simpsons. It happens in the “Treehouse of Horror IV” segment, “The Devil and Homer Simpson.” Therein, after Homer sells his soul for a donut, he finds himself in the depths of Hell, subjected to being force-fed “all the doughnuts in the world” in the “Hell Labs' Ironic Punishment Division”. Despite the demon's efforts to torture him, Homer revels in the gluttonous experience, even requesting more doughnuts when the ordeal is over. 

No donuts for “the fat boy” in this film though. These tortures are of the most sadistic nature. These poor people. As the attending physician says of the Sloth victim, “he's experienced about as much pain and suffering as anyone I've encountered, give or take, and he's still got Hell to look forward to.” Huge apartment for a shithole that this guy spends his last year in, though. 

Quick shoutout to Mrs. Gould, here. Her husband, Eli Gould, represents Greed. He was an attorney that supposedly got rich by lying to get his clients off. Doe's second victim, he says of Gould, “this is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!” Like the others, he was killed brutally with irony. John Doe broke into Gould's law firm, knocked the attorney unconscious before he could depart for the weekend, and bound his hands together. Doe forced him to cut out a pound of his own flesh on a set of scales. Gould eventually died of blood loss, which was the basis for the “comedy” in Shakespeare's play (See parenthetical below). Doe also marks a photo of Gould's wife with blood, circling her eyes. 

Somerset, in his wisdom, figures out that Doe marked her as such because she's supposed to see something. So they make their way to where she is stashed in a safe house, making this woman hysterical with grief look at her husband's crime scene photos. Mills says to her, “Mrs. Gould, I'm truly sorry. I truly am... I need you to look at each photo very carefully. Look and see if there's anything strange or out of place, um. Anything at all.” When she says no, he asks if she is sure as she sobs like someone looking at pictures her husband's horrific murder. “Please! I-I-I just, I-I can't do this right now!” But she does and find a clue! A painting is upside down, which leads them to fingerprints on the wall, taking them to Sloth. She is a real trooper, this lady. 

(If you are interested, this is whole of the reference. Shylock, a Jewish money lender (only Jews could practice “usury” at the time) has his Christian rival Antonio put a pound of his flesh as a security on the lone. When Antonio defaults, Shylock demands the pound from his heart. But Shylock had no right to any blood, and is therefore charged with attempted murder of a Christian, carrying a death penalty, and Antonio is freed without punishment. Eventually the rival Antonio, whom he obviously hates, commutes the sentence to giving him half of his ducats and converting to Christianity, thus making it illegal for him to make his living. He then leaves the play feeling ill. Hilarious!)

Only Fincher's second film. Also the second one I saw during its theatrical run. Only two Fincher movies I didn't see in the theater were Benjamin Button and Mank, which doesn't count. Pandemic and all. After Fincher's experience on Alien3, supposedly he said he'd rather have colon cancer than make another film, though I can't find an original source. Might just be part of his mythos. 

Anyway, studio wanted a different ending, you know, where a head doesn't end in a box. But as Somerset says, “this isn't going to have a happy ending.” I remember on the DVD there was storyboard of an ending where Somerset shoots Doe, which was really weird. The ending we get is pretty memorable, “what's in the box!” But I'm not sure it couldn't have used a little workshopping. 

My beef with it is that I kind of feel Doe's whole final plan that he is working to doesn't make a lot of sense. He murders a woman, Tracy, who is seemingly innocent of a deadly sin, at least from his perspective, and he makes a big deal about none of them being “innocent.” Right after that, Doe claims himself as Envy, which is nonsense as he likely doesn't feel anything except Pride. Maybe Envy in the classical sense, more wanting one's demise instead of wanting Jesse's girl. But that doesn't seem to be what Doe is talking about. I guess Mills is a victim of Wrath, to an extent. However, he is more of a victim of Doe just being psychotic than him trying to prove anything. Since he invites his work to be studied, I say it's sort of bull. 

Several of the sins are like that, kind of falling apart under scrutiny. In reference to Lust, for example, the threat of death is no defense for murder. That guys another victim. Good luck with intercourse the rest of your life. 

Lastly, there is the library card stuff. Absolutely no one would care about this sort of thing, at least now, post-Patriot Act. Also, I read almost all of the books mentioned or shown in the film in my education as an English, philosophy student. In fact, I played a drinking game my sophomore year where we had a beer every time a book was mentioned, shown, or quoted that we read in the film. My focus for lit was on epic poetry, and took a decent amount of theology in my philosophy studies. So I was completely trashed by the end of it. Since most of these are staples of the Western canon, I would think that Doe would own most of those, especially if he went to a bible college or seminary or something. 

I watch this every few years. Wrote about it in college for a Dante class and grad school for a philosophy course. One of my all-time favorites.

Originally saw it in 1995 in the theater with my junior high basketball team. It was quite the crowd-pleaser, which is insane. A Yoda with a library card that's got some things to say to a bunch of kids that have likely never read a book before in their lives. Practically got a standing ovation. Different breed. Those kids.

Depending on the day, this might be my favorite of his films. Hard to pick between this, Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Social Network. The performances alone are worth the watch. Freeman is at the top of his game, this is Pitt's first really great leading role, Spacey is dark and disturbed (just like in real life!). Mesmerizing and suspenseful with a fantastic screenplay, the film is gruesome and shocking. It also features one of the great on-foot chase scenes. An all-time classic from Fincher, who was just getting started.