To do so would interfere with Seven director David Fineher’s painterly notions of proper noir style–a style so chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film. This is one mighty solemn thriller. Set in a rainy, portentously unnamed burg (The City of Dread?) where overhead lighting has yet to be invented, “Seven” seems to believe that if you drop enough references to Dante and Chaucer you have achieved seriousness, that depressive art direction amounts to a philosophical vision and that sheer unpleasantness will somehow elevate Andrew Kevin Walker’s thin script into art. Wrong on all counts.
Underneath the dull barroom debates about the human condition, it’s just another implausible thriller in which a weary but wise veteran cop on the brink of retirement (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) teams up with an impetuous rookie (yes, that’s the other kind) to foil a brilliantly deranged psycho (see above). Freeman brings a calm, grave conviction to his part, and Pitt handles his first action role well. But the movie doesn’t even offer the pleasure of a clever cat-and-mouse game. Stymied for half the story, our heroes finally come up with an unlikely scheme to identify their man, and bingo– get it right on the first try. Their prey, however, eludes them, giving us another hour’s worth of mutilated corpses and a parting message to ponder: the world’s not a nice place. Heavy.
