THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2012
PAGE 7A
Colin Farrell, left, Christopher Walken, center and Sam Rockwell star in the comedy"Seven Psychopaths." The film opened on Oct. 12.
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Creative in 'Seven Psychopaths'
LANDON MCDONALD
lmcdonald@kansan.com
Contrary to what many film geeks will tell you, colorful gangster dialogue is not the sole province of Quentin Tarantino.
Don't get me wrong. Tarantino is my favorite director, and I think he's one of the most consistently brilliant, genre-bending filmmakers working today. But there are others who have elevated underworld idiosyncrasies to the point of high art. One of them is Irish playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh, whose new movie "Seven Psychopath" has been judged by many critics as "Tarantino-esque."
Personally, I think that term does a disservice to both artists. First, Tarantino is a freewheeling, referential cyclone of creative nods and influences, so the adoption of his style by another writer-director would be hopelessly derivative and ultimately pointless. Second, McDonagh's movies have a distinct set of themes and values that make them inherently different from Tarantino's. The best example is probably McDonagh's 2008 hitman comedy "In Bruges," a lapsed-Catholic morality tale swathed in black comedy.
"Seven Psychopaths" represents a meta-comic attempt by McDonagh to make sense of his own creative process. Its principle character is Marty (Colin Farrell), an alcoholic screenwriter who's struggling to flesh out his newest script idea, an unrepentant saga of violence and mayhem tentatively titled, you guessed it, "Seven Psychopaths." Desperate for inspiration, he looks to his manic friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) and his zen-like partner Hans (Christopher Walken), two career eccentrics who make their living kidnapping dogs
and returning them to their wealthy owners for the reward money.
Things become complicated after Billy and Hans bring home a lethargic Shih Tzu named Bonny, unaware that she belongs to a local gangster named Charlie (Woody Harrelson), a sociopathic dog lover who will stop at nothing to reclaim his purloined pooch. All this leads to an increasingly surreal desert showdown, with occasional interludes explaining the histories of the seven titular psychos and priceless cameos from the likes of Harry Dean Stanton as a vengeful Quaker and actor/musician Tom Watts, whose character owns a rabbit bred by the Zodiac killer.
I hesitate to call Farrell's Marty the movie's protagonist, since he's often relegated to the role of a spectator. The focus remains largely on Rockwell and Walken, who manage to play off each other's kooky sensibilities perfectly as Marty's dueling surrogate muses.
Walken's performance alone is worth the price of admission. It's one of his best in years, free from any trace of self-parody, a reminder that he's an actor equally adept at farce and tragedy. In fact, his final story pitch to Marty is enough to make "Seven Psychopaths" feel like both at once.
Rockwell, with his herky-jerk
mannerisms and excitable nature, recalls the lust for puerile, nihilistic violence that can define younger writers and their work. Walken's character, on the other hand, is a soft-spoken pacifist who believes in redemption and greater meanings. Seeing the two interact is like watching McDonagh's id match wits with his super-ego.
FINAL RATING
— Edited by Madison Schultz
'Sinister'scares up original horror concept
LANDON MCDONALD
lmcdonald@kansan.com
What's the scariest thing about "Sinister"? It's not a remake, reboot or a prequel to the sequel of "Paranormal Activity 5: How Katie Got Her Ghoul Back." It's an original horror movie that prizes psychological dread over torture porn or cheap jump scares.
Scott Derrickson's latest film masquerades as an observant family drama before revealing itself as a devilishly intriguing haunted house thriller, one willing to eschew the usual pop-out banalities in favor of tightly ratcheted suspense and a shockingly severe third-act payoff.
"Sinister" is also fully committed to its R-rating, which it received not for gore, language or sexuality but rather for what the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) glibly describes as "disturbing violent images and some terror". Why not say it's too frightening for kids and leave it at that?
Despite its later inventiveness, the movie's set-up feels discerningly familiar, especially for Stephen King fans. Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is a washed up true-crime author whose last best
seller hit the shelves nearly a decade ago. Hoping to rekindle the recognition he feels he deserves, he decides to move his wife (Juliet Rylance) and two young children into an unassuming suburban house that was once the site of a bizarre series of murders, including the ritualistic hanging of an entire family from a tree in their new backyard. The worst part? The splintered branch that held them is still up there.
It's always refreshing to see a horror film populated by actors who don't look as if they've wandered off an Abercrombie photo-shoot. Hawke's moody, rumpled performance acknowledges Ellison's self-destructive vanity while compelling the audience to root for him anyway.
Oblivious to the traumatic toll this news will have on his own family, Ellison holes up in his office to write a new book centered on the massacre and the missing girl who may have survived it. His obsession with the case deepens after finding a box of what appear to be snuff films in the attic. These diabolically titled "home movies" contain some of the most unnerving imagery in "Sinister," especially during a scene involving the improper use of a lawnmower.
Former Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson appears as the surly town sheriff who has plenty of reasons to distrust Ellison, while James Ransone defies regional stereotyping as a chipper deputy and rabid fan of Ellison's earlier work. Veteran actor Vincent D'Onofrio, who apparently shot his scenes via Skype, even shows up as a helpful demonology professor.
Derrickson's unjustly forgotten "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" also depended on a gifted cast to find the humanity in a genre where characters are often treated like cattle and dispatched with the same indifferent efficiency. The "Sinister" script, which Derrickson co-wrote with online film critic C. Robert Cargill, never makes that mistake. These two clearly understand one of the oldest rules in horror: If you really want to scare us, make us care.
FINAL RATING
— Edited by Laken Rapier
Juliet Rylance, left, Ethan Hawke, right, and Michael Hall D'Addario star in "Sinister," a supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson. The film opened on Oct. 12.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
'Smash and grab' heist raises security concerns
ART
AMSTERDAM (AP) — In Hollywood movies, heists usually feature criminals who plan meticulously and use high-tech equipment to avoid detection. But the thieves who snatched seven paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Monet worth millions from a gallery in Rotterdam appear to have taken a less glamorous approach, relying mostly on speed and brute force.
In other words, the theft from the Kunsthal exhibition on avant-garde art was more "smash and grab" than "Ocean's 11."
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Dutch police said Wednesday they had no suspects in the case, the largest art heist in the country for more than a decade, though an appeal to witnesses had produced more than a dozen tips for investigators to follow up.
As questions arose about security at the museum, its director, Emily Ansken, rejected criticism of the facility's safeguards. Speaking at a news conference Tuesday evening, she defended Kunsthal's security as "state of the art" and noted that insurance companies had agreed to insure it.
Experts said the structure and location of the museum, which was designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, may have attracted criminals.
"Speaking as a museum-goer, it's fantastic," museum security expert Ton Cremers said. "Speaking as a security expert, it's a total nightmare."
And yet the thieves got away. The paintings they took are estimated to be worth roughly $100 million if sold at auction.
The gallery is located along a large road that leads to a roundabout, less than a mile away, connecting highways heading in three directions. The display space where the paintings once hung is a large square area, at ground level, visible from outside through glass walls.
Though police and the museum have declined to discuss aspects of the heist that might help thieves, the main details of what happened are clear.
The break-in occurred at around 3 a.m. Tuesday, police say, after someone triggered an alarm.
Investigators have focused on an emergency exit behind the building. The exit connects directly to the main exhibition hall, with paintings hung just a few yards away. Tire tracks can still be seen in the grass behind the building leading away from the exit. Police on Tuesday dusted the exit for fingerprints and took samples of the tire prints.
The paintings were yanked from the walls, leaving only white spaces and broken hanging wires dangling behind.
Police spokesman Henk van der Velde said Wednesday that 25 officers have been assigned to the case, but the getaway car has not been found and there are no suspects. Agents were reviewing videotape from museum cameras.
Officers were on the scene within five minutes of the alarm being triggered, according to museum director Ansenk, but the thieves were already gone.
It is unknown what will happen to the paintings if the thieves are not caught.