Seven Psychopaths 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: It's an old-fashioned John Huston caper film extended to sulfurous comedy - from Beat the Devil to Meet the Devil. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: ... delights in pulling the rug out from under the audience ... in such cerebrally and cinematically exciting ways ... Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Meta to the max, filled with clever jokes and observations that stick like barbs and deflated ones that land with a thud, "Seven Psychopaths" is a leisurely riff about movies, violence, storytelling and the art of the steal. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Seven Psychopaths doesn't jell, but it's enough of a crowd-pleaser to make you worried about how pleased the crowd around you is. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: To me, the movie is genuinely humor-resistant. Any cult it develops will be chewing gum and wearing Halloween costumes. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The violence wears you down. Like one of its nutso characters, "Seven Psychopaths" has a death wish. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: It comes off as a big inside joke. And not a very funny one at that. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths promises a bloody good time. It delivers. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: There's a soul to these nesting and rhyming stories of ruthless killers and what motivates them to pick up their guns and knives -- and in some cases, gas cans. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Doesn't leave much behind beyond a trail of blood, wit, and confusion, but it's something to see while it lasts. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: A delightfully nuts, compulsively watchable film. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: 'Seven Psychopaths" is many things, chief among them a long-overdue love letter to Christopher Walken and a crudely drawn ransom note from Sam Rockwell. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: I can't remember the last time I was so sorely disappointed by a writer I liked; the movie is undeniably entertaining but as hollow as a bullet wound. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: McDonagh's characters may be awful, or simply lost, but they're all addicted to the art of the tall tale and the dark allure of the nightmarish bedtime story. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Yes, it's a lot to keep track of, but writer-director Martin McDonagh does so with deft humor as the film hurls toward a desert climax, foreshadowed in one of Billy and Marty's exchanges. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: While "Seven Psychopaths" is indeed as crazy as it sounds, it's not nearly as smart as it thinks it is. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: With its blend of low-rent gangster cool, high-body-count hipster violence, smart-mouth dialogue, inspired casting and a blissfully retro soundtrack...[this]might have been a groundbreaking film -- in 1992. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: An energetically demented psycho-killer comedy set in faux-noir L.A., Seven Psychopaths rollicks along to the unique narrative beat and language stylings of Anglo-Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh, channeling Quentin Tarantino. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: If you're a lover of quick dialogue and madcap situations, you'll likely feel this one came with a bow attached. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: There's way more wit than weight in Martin McDonagh's second feature, but still much to enjoy. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A collection of weird riffs that not even engaging acting by Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken and Tom Waits can bring together. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: For a good hour, Seven Psychopaths is lively, bloody fun. Then the yawning starts. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Movies about moviemaking can often feel lazy -- like rock songs about touring, or poetry about sitting in cafes -- but McDonagh is such an energetic filmmaker and fancy-footed writer that he nearly pulls it off. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The kind of messy, absurdist movie that can lift you out of a crappy mood-at least for a while. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: McDonagh sets real (and very different) moods for his stories-within-stories. The Los Angeles locations - apart from the obligatory Hollywood sign - seem fresh. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, NPR: There's something overtly mechanical about McDonagh's approach that keeps it all from being as outrageously fun as it's pretending to be. But it is enjoyable to watch the parade of actors McDonagh has assembled ... Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: In writer-director Martin McDonagh's hazy but fun meditation on friendship, the art of storytelling and masculine morality gone off the rails. If it's hard to keep 'em all straight without a scorecard, just go with it. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Too many of its moments of let's-subvert-the-genre seem to leave McDonagh stranded and flailing at just the moment when a Tarantino movie or a Chuck Palahniuk novel is snapping into place. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Put a gun in the hands of Woody Harrelson and some glorious gab in the mouth of Christopher Walken - the most deadpan of deadpanning thespians - and it's impossible not to make something of this profanity-flying conflation. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: For about 75 minutes, Seven Psychopaths is a rollicking good movie - kinetic, clever, funny, and brutal. Then, inexplicably, it falls apart. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: This is one of the best times I've had at the movies in years. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Well, they have the title right. I don't know how these people found one another, but they certainly belong on the same list. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What movie junkie out there wouldn't leap at the chance to see merry pranksters such as Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson go nuts in something called Seven Psychopaths? It's crazy-killer fun. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Walken gives one of the most restrained, mysterious and thoroughly magnificent performances of his long career as the brokenhearted, cravat-wearing Hans. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Seven Psychopaths" has to be counted as a disappointment. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: All this narrative nesting and genre-skipping sounds very cerebral on the page, but in practice, Seven Psychopaths is as pleasurably kinetic as can be, full of double-crosses and gunplay and sun-kissed SoCal locations. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: After breaking apart the crime film, McDonagh puts it back together again for a conclusion worthy of the genre. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A movie that leaves you stumbling out of the theater in a state of giddy, elated vertigo. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Seven Psychopaths" is a vivid illusion of fun, but sane consumers can find similar sensations in the discount video bin eight days a week. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Each time it appears that McDonagh, who also directed, has written himself into a cul de sac, he off-roads the movie (sometimes literally) into fresh territory. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: This flick never pretends to be anything but a bright hall of fun-house mirrors. And there, so gloriously distorted, gargoyles look right at home. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The really crazy thing about Seven Psychopaths is how much sense it makes, in a weird sort of way. And how much fun it has while doing so. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Even if the snake winds up swallowing its own tail, it's a jolting spectacle you'll want to keep watching. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: McDonagh is less saturated in film and pop culture than Tarantino and less prone than Kaufman to disappear down story wormholes. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: There's ... a uniquely affecting spiritual component to McDonagh's work, something he explores here via two sublimely ridiculous stories-within-the-story about a razor-wielding Quaker and a vengeful Vietnamese monk. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Seven Psychopaths is about seven times more clever than most Hollywood comedies. And way more demented. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: The script's primary tension isn't between the characters at all, but rather in McDonagh's mind, as he arm-wrestles the split between shlock and sincerity in screenwriting. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The movie in which Martin McDonagh the scabrous playwright and Martin McDonagh the high-end junk filmmaker at last craft a doozy both can brag about to their mates. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A toxic little bauble of Hollywood gestures, cliches and tropes. Read more