Se7en

Seven (or Se7en) is a 1995 American thriller film, casting Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as the lead characters, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey given the supporting roles; the story line written by Andrew Kevin Walker and the movie directed by David Fincher.

I have watched this movie for about four times and today I have the urge to write my opinion on this movie. The story line is a themed according to the 7 Deadly Sins, which are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. David Mills and William Somerset are the two ‘homicide’ detectives and they involve in a case where they have to track down on a serial killer who later in the movie is revealed to be John Doe. John Doe is portrayed as a patient and he goes on killing or rather butchering people in various disgusting ways (like slicing the victims’ bodies into two halves, chopping off their fingers, inserting tubes into their genitals, banging them down with a sledgehammer, disfiguring their faces, etc.). The irony is that the serial killer doesn’t call the people whom he kills as innocent instead states out his own reasons for murdering them. However, the reasons are certainly not agreeable by law but it is indeed the core-harsh reality.

The best part, at least for me, was the involvement of various books. It is in the state’s law that certain books are ‘flagged’, like Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, etc. the FBI keeps a track on how frequently these books are read by whom all. The involvement of this idea in the movie struck a thought in me that how knowledge can influence people in its extremes, either in a good way or in a bad way. This is what man has brought as a catastrophe on him, by reading! However, comprehension of the right and the wrong also comes with reading and moral values.

Seven is a movie also depicting the everyday lives of people in America (by extension, this can be associated with all the sophisticated countries). The nuclear families have decreased the bond of care and concern amongst humans. How man has dug his own grave through technology, reading (in one way), sophistication and isolation.

The characters chosen for the roles of the two detectives and the serial killer have done a good job in involving themselves completely in the roles given to them. And I would give it a rating of 4.25 on a scale of 5.