Dear, Zach, you got it all wrong...


It IS perfect!

One of the most disturbing films ever, and not just for the gore. But that only works in the film's favour. One of the best thrillers ever. Great performances, great story, and a killer ending. The only noticeable flaw, in my opinion, was Gwyneth Paltrow, but then again, I've never liked her. Fantastic film.

Fucking Brilliant. In my top 10. Amazing performances all around. Spacey played John Doe so well at the end. He just had this disgusting and insane feel to him. One of the more disturbing films I have ever seen, but so amazing. A+

Thank God they didn't go with the alternate ending. It was dumb.

Anyway, absolutely one of my all time favorite movies. It hits all the right notes.

****

Awesome, awesome film. The ending was brilliant.

A

Possibly second only to The Silence of the Lambs in the "creepy serial killer thriller" genre.

A-

Great film, love the cinematography and look of this film. SE7EN also features my favorite Morgan Freeman performance.As someone else mentioned if you love SE7EN get the two disc special edition of the film.

A

Hmm, what to say that hasnt been mentioned. Probably the scariest film that isnt a horror movie. Though ultimately, thats what makes it even scarier, because it stays in the realm of reality, and makes people really think of the sickos that live here, much like Silence of the lambs, but I like this more, but there both great movies that are cinema history.

A+

(I still think Fincher's the game is his most brilliant film though)

10/10

The entire film can be summed up in one scene, and that is when Morgan Freeman says that he (and i am paraphrasing here) saw a man with his eyes cut out. It was a simple robbery but they cut his eyes out. In essence, that is what John Doe was saying as well. Society is decayed, there are no more good guys left. I think the movie's message is more powerful than any message i have seen in any film except for maybe American Beauty.

A

ridiculously awesome film, only seen and edited copy on TV though, so my grade could go up with an uncut viewing.

Probably for the best, Im not sure your fragile mind could handle such images at that young of an age.

Solid A and in my top 10 all time. Box mentioned this in another thread, so I figured it was time to dust it off again. I love the script. It's literate and expects the audience to have some basic understanding of sin. Pitt and Freeman both gave the best performances of their career's and are a fine contrast. Pitt young, brash, and unjaded with Freeman spiritually tainted, learned, and quiet. The gore in the movie was very disturbing because the film gave it context unlike throwaway movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Anyway, I wish we could see more cerebral and well acted thrillers.

Yeah what a great film. I remember going to see this on my own after doing my head in studying for my final year high school exams. Man what a creepy experience that was. But the film just blew me away. Aghh that ending.

Fincher's Best.
Best film of 1995
Top 10 90's film.
One of the best thrillers ever.

Pure Brilliance : A+

Hm....I guess I don't buy into the hype? It was well-made, but not nearly as shocking or disturbing as people would like to believe. Perhaps I've been desensitized and complacent with shock endings, which are becoming bigger and more elaborate in newer films. It was a very well-made thriller and I wish more movies were as intellectual as Se7en.

B+/A- (I'm torn).

Okay. Wow. What a mindfuck of a movie. I was left shocked and dazed for half an hour after the film. Still am slightly knocked.
I'm not going to be properly able to review it yet because of the ending but I'll try give a smidgen now.
Seriously, wow.

I went into the film knowing that it was supposed to be good, one of the best of the 90s. Now I haven't watched many movies, much less any old films, and when I say old films they are still very recent, but the last few I've seen that were supposed to be great/fantastic etc. were just good to me, good but flawed. People will obviously shoot me down if they took a look at my grades, with what films I give As and these films getting A- or less. But, before doing so, I'll just say, most of the time you go into a movie with an open mind, so to me, if it exceeds my expectations in a great way it gets an A. These films have the misfortune I guess of having a verdict already established so I go in expecting to be wowed and am more objective. I don't go into Transformers 2 looking at the script or the acting unless it is really that bad i.e. Terminator Salvation. They are entertainment and if they entertain then they succeed.

So without anymore of that, Seven for me, started off very well and I thought I'd finally give a straight A to a movie that has had esteem tied to it that I hadn't seen. However to me, though very well made, the script and the intellect that seems to be at the forefront of the film is actually flawed and falls apart towards the end. So I still can't place it yet because that shock ending is still clouding my judgment but an A- is most likely.

The end has got to be one of the most awfully dark, shocking, disturbing and powerful endings ever. Only once has a movie done that and I can't even remember which now but this singlehandedly thrashes every movie so far. Yet, to me, that is one of the film's biggest problems. It's not formulaic that's for sure, it doesn't go as you would expect but does that make it great? No, there are other ways to make this great but the scripting to me lets this film down immensely. From the point they actually get to John Doe's apartment the film starts to unravel.

First and foremost, Doe starts shooting at them, unprecedented, uncharacteristic and unrealistic. But that's minor, though still worth pointing out. It's the fact the way they find him which makes it really quite of a letdown or lame. But that's not it. It's probably the fact that from that point onwards the murders no longer seem like it follows Doe's ultimate preachings. Sure, you could argue it's because he was disrupted from his safe operating house but the deaths after sloth have less of an effect, meaning and therefore power as a whole. Lust is ridiculous, using another man to mutilate a prostitute which contradicts his whole they are all sinners and deserve it. The man, you could argue was the one punished but Doe himself states it is the prostitute that embodies the sin and her death aligns her with it. Prostitution is not about lust, not for the prostitute so it is meaningless why she was killed or she is the object of the sin.

Then pride comes along. The facts around the case are meagre and loose. She was a model and did nothing until he cut her nose off. Who the fuck would want to live without their nose, not just because they would be ugly but how on earth would they breathe properly? The meaning is lost or just plain ineffective.

Then we have envy and wrath. Yes, it is smart that he and Mills are both part of the masterplan and he controls Mills after this. However, did he really have to kill Mills wife and kid? They had not sinned, sure he had sinned but they had not, contradicting his whole preaching. This is similar to lust in that sense. Also, and this is bigger, he planned to be envy so he would have killed whoever was investigating him? That's a huge chance. If it were just Freeman's character doing it, and of course Doe wouldn't have known Mills would transfer, who would he kill? The scripting linking all these incidents is very intelligent but the incidents themselves lack proper meaning. He planned to have all seven people killed so he tortured a guy for one year and didn't have the rest exactly planned out? That's a huge flaw. Moving on now to wrath, it is smart because the death in this case for Mills is not death in it's literal sense but metaphorically. He is broken, without purpose he so strongly advocated, without love, without ambition and also by killing him without prospects, hope and life. In a word, he has destroyed his life and one would assume suicide would end it on an even sweeter or darker note. However there is still a small chance Mills can recover since it is almost guaranteed he won't be killed by the judge, no one would even call Doe innocent either and there is no death penalty. Also any half-baked lawyer could defeat any prosecution, but would anyone even take up prosecution? The audience and most people's reaction to the film and had it been in real life would be against Doe and why would anyone bother defending him? Would the state really put out the message they are going to prosecute a detective who killed a man who murdered 7 people out of some warped sense of life and decapitated one of them? No, they wouldn't. Mills would probably be scotch-free any judge would rule so or in this case jury, being murder and all.

So then that brings us to the last point. Doe talked up his plan like it would be everlasting, that it would be shocking, meaningful etc. but it's not, it's exactly what Mills said it would be. The world today is fickle. Sure it would gain publicity but would anyone care? In the long run, no. His message, his preaching, it's just like Mills said, a TV show, a film, a T-shirt nothing more, nothing less. No one would give a damn about his meaning, the world would not change. It would be forgotten in a week, maybe less. Also because despite these murders the police in film never linked any of these seven sins, so the press would only know them as murders, detached from the meaning Doe is trying to associate them with. You see it every day anyway, in a month, no one gives a damn about Haiti anymore. And again like I said, what's the point he's trying to prove? That everyone is guilty, everyone is capable? But he knows that, he said that. He wants to punish, teach a lesson, but he is not immortalized is he? He doesn't even fulfill his own meaning and actions by being a hypocrite. His grand plan is nothing but a farce that attempts to have meaning attached and of course this is the script's doing. I don't think they were smart enough, had the forward thinking, or even planned as such to put a deeper meaning by his being hypocritical. That way every film you analyze, like any literature will seem revolutionary. You could make an argument for anything in today's world. Thieves sue their victims and win for goodness sake, where is the common sense, the law and logic in that?

And yet another flaw is the fact that everyone lets Doe walk into the police station with blood on his shirt and hands and EVERYONE ignores him until he shouts detective. Too many plot holes and other fluff and nonsense making this a terribly overrated film. However because the mistakes are all from one avenue it is easier to forgive or overlook though glaring and sticking out like a sore thumb. Like Memento & Eternal Sunshine before it, it doesn't join my great list. (I'd add Casino and American Gangster but I don't think those were regarded as highly) It's problems are bigger than all save Casino combined.

Still, this film is valued for its intelligence, which after this viewing I find highly artificial and undeserved. It has promise, its premise is good, it tries and that is valuable since the final product comes much short of the goal it intended to achieve. The execution of an otherwise great idea is flawed, not the direction/acting etc. by any means but the screenplay. It is still a very haunting and well done film. I'm sure we all knew that Mills wife was murdered by the time they were on the road with Doe going on about his opinions but when the box appeared from the delivery guy. Wow. That sealed it. Knowing what was inside the box and the whole situation of Mills and the position he was to Doe's taunts, Freeman's worries and the other cops terror just amounted to almost wholly unbearable. In real life I would have died of shock, ripped my eyes or my conscious brain out after torturing the guilty to death. Most haunting feeling ever, much more fear, horror and terror than any horror film could ever induce mostly because it is so realistic which makes the subject matter of this film more powerful, that our world is so screwed up it could actually happen. That is terrifying. Horror films are such trash relying on idiotic scares and gore, initial shock and sickness yes but enduring horror no, and that is what makes this ending so terrible and effective. Also because the film's acting, directing and the story without the obvious flaws already present make it so, after all any film could toss a head in a box and it wouldn't be terrifying. I also liked we didn't get to see the head which would just be more of a gimmick formula shocker and much more baity, obvious and less effective in the long run. It's too much of an attention grabber. This subtle way was wondrous.

Also having said all that, people might complain about Paltrow but I thought the relationship between them, not showing too much or too little, the realism made it so much more effective. We were just getting to know the woman and her life and she's been decapitated. Shit, as I type this I get a harrowing feeling and a sinking one in the dark pit of my stomach. So much promise and life robbed away by a nearly mad preacher. Yes, the last point I'm going to make is that he is in no way insane so they would have won the case had they not gone for the victims and even then they WERE always going to find out who he killed because Mills would find his wife dead, missing or decapitated. So, sucks for Mills but Doe would have been imprisoned for life and no insanity charges. You also can't argue against them after all the plannings, writings, actions he's taken, recorded messages etc. Wrath also was lame in that sense because he provoked so much to get Mills to kill him which would be again against his own preachings and in fact not a sin. He has not done anything worthy so killing him would not be sinning after all he's done to kill Mills mentally. So again another failure strike against the film's wannabe or overachieving, overpraised, artificial, empty script. But the last thing I'll say is that killing Tracy was also highly implausible because he was on the wanted list, someone would have recognized him and police wouldn't have given it to him the residence or whatever he asked easily even by phone. Also he would have blood already on him and so couldn't have gone anywhere without people noticing. Paltrow would also not have opened the door to someone with blood on him and if it was forced entry I'm sure she would have been more capable of running away or hurting him, whilst in the film he was unscathed. The cutting his fingertips is another flaw because he would have left blood everywhere making it easier to detect him and cordon him, flag him whatever.

So in consequence, this film whilst good, is not great, is overrated and not very intelligent for all the reasons I've stated. No one will probably read this but it feels good to have it all poured out of me and on 'paper'.

honestly boring

Hadn't seen Seven in a few years and watched it again last night. Truly one of the best films of the 90s and one of the most disturbing I've ever seen. That ending still packs such a wallop.

Who the hell gave Seven a D???

I gave it a D. It's honestly boring.

**** / ***** (B)

I always thought this was a good movie, yet slightly overrated in its cult status. My biggest problem is that the ending is a bit predictable and Kevin Spacey's turn in The Usual Suspects from the same year made his turn here less impressive against that mammoth role and a real nose pull his character does there.

This has always been perhaps my favorite thriller, a highly impressionable and haunting experience when I saw it the first time. I watched it again today since a long time and it very much holds up as sublime piece of film making art. The script is absolute ace and matched by excellent performances. Se7en has a great premise that delivers with perfectly executed scenes which results in one of the best films ever made. The film is not an easy watch because of the gruesome abuse and murders in it and it's impossible to live the ending again like it was the first time. But this film is just perfect and there's been few films better than this one when seeing them the first time.

A+