50 Movies to See Before you Die- Seven

In our next installment of the 50 Movies to See Before you Die, we are going to talk about David Fincher's amazing, terrifying, twisted, and excellent Gothic masterpiece, Seven. Seven stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as Detective Mills and Somerset, respectively. Detective Mills is a new transfer and is set to replace Detective Somerset, who is a few weeks away from retirement. Those plans are complicated when a serial killer begins murdering victims according to the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust.

What makes Seven so spectacular is that you cannot define its genre, it has equal parts horror, thriller, noir, and even some buddy cop elements. It has the best parts of films like Chinatown, Silence of the Lambs, and Lethal Weapon while still maintaining its own unique identity. Each crime is more shocking than the previous one, and as the murders get more depraved, the hunt for clues intensifies. The acting in the film is top notch, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman turn in performances that defined their careers, and Gwyneth Paltrow really shines in her first big film role.

Fincher's direction is nothing short of amazing. In his first big film since Alien 3, he was not afraid to fail, he went for uniqueness and shots that served the film better than most could have imagined. The film is expertly written by Andrew Kevin Walker, whose only other big film screenplay credits are the underrated Sleepy Hollow and 8mm, as well as the terrible update of The Wolfman. It would have been easy for Walker and Fincher to lighten the film up or water down the material to make it more palatable, but they wisely stuck with their ideas and made one of the great thrillers in film history.

Any conversation about Seven though really needs to focus on the ending of the film. This is were we get into spoiler territory, but I will not reveal anything that would ruin the film as knowing the ending would diminish the remainder of the film. But while the film is billed as a "whodunit" throughout most of the run time, when the killer is revealed, you discover that sometimes big stars take small parts when they know they are dealing with A+ material. And the shocking ending of the film will make you remember that not every director ends his films with a neatly wrapped, shiny bow. This is truly a climax you will never forget.

Like my previously reviewed Saving Private Ryan, and Diomedes' reviewed The Shawshank Redemption, Seven is a new classic, a film of the last twenty years that will be etched in the memory of those who have seen it forever. I cannot recommend this amazing piece of cinema enough.

-Maximus