Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival was a good one for yours truly, as I made the first of two trips to Midnight Madness for a screening of Seven Psychopaths, from writer/director Martin McDonagh and staring Colin Farell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken. If you like your movies crazy, funny and full of some stellar violence, this one is definitely for you.
Find out more after the jump!
Seven Psychopaths is the story of a down on his lucky screenwriter (Farrell), struggling to complete his next work, titled Seven Psychopaths. His friend Billy (Rockwell) is an out of work actor and dog thief, working for Hans (Walken). Things go bad for all of them when Billy steals a dog from the wrong guy, gangster Charlie (Harrelson). Along the way we meet a series of psychopaths, including ones played by Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton, both who turn in brilliant performances.
They’re not the only ones, mind you. Every actor is at the top of their game in Seven Psychopaths, thanks to McDonagh’s knock-out of a script. Coming off a disappointing response to Total Recall, Colin Farrell has so much great stuff to work with in the film, he simply shines on the screen. The same goes for Sam Rockwell, who is a ball of kinetic energy every moment he’s on-screen. Really though, there’s not a poor performance in the film. Consider Seven Psychopaths a must see when it goes into wide release October 12th.
As for the TIFF experience, while standing in line for an hour to get seats can be tiring, and simply sitting in a theatre at midnight even more so, there’s no question that I had a real buzz being in a room with all of the film’s stars. Farrell and Rockwell looked as though they’d already been enjoying the Toronto nightlife, Harrelson stood smiling and quiet, while Walken gifted the audience with a “hello” in that defining voice of his.
Well worth getting home close to 4am.
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