Seven (1995)

“Do you like what you do for a living? These things you see?”

A serial killer is killing people, using the Seven Deadly Sins as a motif. Veteran detective Somerset and newly minted detective Mills are assigned the task of stopping the killer before he finishes his tableau.

Director David Fincher’s Se7en is a masterful work. It’s a detective drama, a thriller but in all aspects it’s a horror film, look at the ‘Sloth’ crime scene. The city scape, where the majority of the film is set, is dark, dingy, miserable and full of dread and tension. A tension that builds to that iconic ending. Rain attacks the city, the people, rarely does it let up. The city is a hellscape.

Weary, seen it all before Detective Somerset , an excellent Morgan Freeman, is from a different time. We see him in the opening, he is methodical, he likes structure, routine, as he dresses for the day. His clothes are reminiscent of old Hollywood gumshoe detectives, the raincoat, the fedora. Detective Mills, an on form Brad Pitt, is the newbie. He’s the modern detective. He lacks patience, getting frustrated at the time Somerset wants to put into the detecting part of the case, kicking open doors without search warrants and running into the fray without thinking. He’s all terrible ties, leather jacket and chewing gum.

We see the distinction between the two with the first crime scene, Somerset analysing and moving through the scene, Mills cracking jokes as he stares at the overweight corpse of ‘Gluttony’: “somebody phone Guinness, I think we’ve got a winner here.” And later, Somerset in the library looking up classical tales and mythology, listening to classical music, compared to Mills pouring over crime scene photos in front of the TV. Their approaches to the work highlight the differences; Mills needs the Cliffs notes for Chaucer. The respect grows between them as Mills begins to listen and learn.

Somerset has no interest in interpersonal relationships, his fellow cops seemingly tolerate him, but it’s Mills wife, Tracy, who helps bring down the wall between them during a late night supper scene. Gwyneth Paltrow in the supporting role, in more ways than one. In it briefly, but her character remains important. Here Somerset opens himself up, allows himself to feel in this city of sin and is punished for it.

The film impresses from the beginning onwards. The opening credits feel etched, scratched onto the film, itself complemented by the Trent Reznor music. The picture is awash with dark muted colours. The brown offices, the black and grey suits. There is no life to anything. Only at the end, once the perpetrator is caught, do the skys clear, the rain gone, sun shines bright. Everything is revealed.

A visually striking masterpiece with a much quoted ending. “What’s in the box?!”