Seven (Se7en) Reviews
The filmmakers stick to their vision with such dedication and persistence that something indelible comes across--something ethically and artistically superior to The Silence of the Lambs that refuses to exploit suffering for fun or entertainment.
An intensely claustrophobic, gut-wrenching thriller.
So chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film.
Fincher handles the violence with sensitivity, announcing its obscenity in spoken analyses and briefly glimpsed post mortem shots, but never showing the murderous acts themselves.
The crime scenes are rendered in sickening detail, and the whole film has a murky, madly pretentious tone.
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| Original Score: 1/5
Noticeable skill has gone into the making of Seven, but it's hard to take much pleasure in that.
Focus, Freeman and film craft make Seven difficult to dismiss as a stylish exercise, but employing this grisly subject matter for an exercise of any kind is a queasy way to go.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Good as it is, it misses greatness by not quite finding the right way to end.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Unfortunately, screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker's finale, in addition to its grossness, feels like an act of treachery against the viewer.
Eventually, with its irrationally downbeat ending, Seven even drags the viewer down into the abyss.
TIME Magazine
Top CriticIt is very tiresome peering through the gloom trying to catch a glimpse of something interesting, then having to avert one's eyes when it turns out to be just another brutally tormented body.
When's the last time you saw a movie in which The Divine Comedy figured as a significant plot point?
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| Original Score: 3/4
Seven, a grisly social allegory drawn in blood and spawned in despair, casts a lingering, malodorous spell.
Seven is unnecessarily gory and runs for a little too long, but neither of these elements detracts much from the film's enjoyability (unless you have a weak stomach).
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| Original Score: 3/4
Seven, the eerie new homicide thriller, has a tantalizingly morbid atmosphere of unease.
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| Original Score: B
