This slick self-aware crime-comedy from writer and director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) may not appeal to everyone as a result of its over-the-top violence and occasionally absurdist tone. Yet for me, due to its great cast, fantastic writing, and endless list of quotable lines, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ is certainly worth its runtime, and then some. As the film always remains just as entertaining as it is unconventional, even if ‘Seven Psychopaths’ isn’t quite as pristinely crafted as the rest of McDonagh’s work.

Plot Summary: A struggling alcoholic screenwriter (Marty) in the process of writing a screenplay based around seven separate psychopaths soon becomes inadvertently entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends accidently kidnap a psychopathic gangster’s beloved Shih Tzu…

Filled with plenty of sly, witty, and memorable dialogue throughout, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ constantly uses its clever writing to create an array of stories within the main narrative. As the screenplay writing protagonist: ‘Marty,’ reels off many of his early ideas for different psychos to get his friend’s opinions on them before implementing them into his latest screenplay. The film also uses this structure to engage in plenty of meta humour, as the characters continuously list off various tropes and clichés of similar action and crime flicks, which the film itself actively avoids, resulting in a well-written film overall. In fact, the screenplay for: ‘Seven Psychopaths’ was actually featured in a 2006 blacklist of the ‘most liked’ unmade screenplays of that year, before it was obviously green-lit many years later.

One of the best elements of the film is undeniably its cast, as Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken as ‘Marty,’ ‘Billy,’ and ‘Hans’ never fail to be hilarious together. As all three of them share some excellent chemistry, portraying their characters as if they’ve been friends for many years before the current story begins. Woody Harrelson and musician Tom Waits both also make an appearance within the film as the mostly intimidating criminal: ‘Charlie,’ and ‘Zachariah,’ one of the psychopaths that inspires ‘Marty’s screenplay, who is constantly creepy and bizarre whenever he is on-screen. Yet despite the film’s admirable performances and writing, the female characters within the film are noticeably quite poor. As while the main cast do point this out through some sarcastic dialogue, the few female characters that do appear receive barley any development and feel mostly pointless in the long-run.

Although ‘Seven Psychopaths’ cinematography is nowhere near as impressive as the camerawork throughout ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,’ for example. The cinematography by Ben Davis is serviceable, with the occasional pleasing shot in between many of the more average ones. However, this is where another one of my criticisms comes into play, this being the story’s setting, as whilst I understand the film’s protagonist is a screenplay writer so it links to the idea of building a career in Hollywood. McDonagh’s other films both manage to make exceptional use of their beautiful and distinct locations, which makes the city of Los Angeles where ‘Seven Psychopaths’ takes place feel fairly dull in comparison.

The original score by Carter Burwell isn’t overly memorable yet does suitably fit the film, adding tension to scenes where necessary in addition to feeling quite subtle when in contrast to the film’s outrageous self-aware humour, as according to composer Carter Burwell, his intent with the soundtrack revolved more around wanting to create an emphatic ambience for the film rather than just being your standard, generic action score, this is most obvious in the tracks: ‘Zachariah’ and ‘Billy’s Diary’ (my personal two favourite tracks from the film).

Personally, although the story works fine without, I would have desired a little more style when it comes to the film’s visual presentation, in particular, in the editing and title graphics. As with the exception of the typewriter text that is utilised to inform the audience of each psychopath from one through to seven, the filmmaking actually displays barley any style throughout. That being said, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ does still feature a number of dark comedic moments similar to the rest of McDonagh’s filmography, displaying a couple of dramatic scenes alongside plenty of extremely graphic deaths.

All in all, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ definitely isn’t the best director Martin McDonagh has to offer, with both ‘In Bruges’ and ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ being far superior films, in my opinion. ‘Seven Psychopaths’ still delivers on a creative plot and some tremendous writing and performances even in spite of its lack of style and weak female characters. If you’re a fan of this director’s other films, I’d say ‘Seven Psychopaths’ is worth a watch, just don’t have your expectations too high when going in for the first time. Final Rating: 7/10.