David Fincher has been a director who has dabbled in a lot of different genres in his career. He started out doing music videos before getting his big break on Alien 3, which didn’t turn out so well for him back in 1992. Most people didn’t like Alien 3 that much. Still, fans and critics who felt like paying attention could see his sense of style and what he was going for in Alien 3, which would later become clear — he wanted to tell dirty grimy bloody crime stories. His next film, Se7en, about the seven deadly sins, would prove that point perfectly. To this very day, I don’t think he has made a better film. 

Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is about to retire when he gets a case that will confound him and his new partner, Detective Mills (Brad Pitt). They don’t exactly hit it off at first, and Somerset doesn’t want the case and doesn’t think Mills should take it either. He believes it’s the beginning of something bigger. And he’s right. They find a man with his head in a bowl of spaghetti, and it looks like he was forced to eat until he died. This is the first of what will become seven murders by a methodical intelligent man who would become serial killer John Doe.  

Based on the works of Dante’s Inferno, Andrew Kevin Waller was inspired by his own life, moving from Pennsylvania to New York City and combining it to write the script. The script was accidentally sent to David Fincher, and he was adamant on directing it. Mostly set in Los Angeles, it took a lot of visual effects to make it look like New York City. The dark cinematography and rainy aesthetic gave it the look Fincher was looking for. With each subsequent murder, the plot thickened, and the film got better and better. Fincher wouldn’t know it at the time, but he created one of the best film noirs ever. 

There are things about Se7en that set it apart from other crime films involving detectives that came after it. The opening credits give a lot of details about each of the crimes that would eventually unfold within the film. Details like each day of the week would flash on the screen, letting viewers know about the passage of time that the movie takes place in. There were many copycat films like this, but none of them would ever come close to capturing what this movie achieved. This is a blueprint for many films to come.

Ever since this movie came out, Fincher has collaborated with a band, Nine Inch Nails, and its lead singer, Trent Reznor. The song over the credits and in the middle of the film, “Closer,” was etched in my mind as a young adult. It became an anthem of the grunge era and was perfectly set in this film. The dark aspects worked well with the darker nature of Reznor’s songs. He would later become an Oscar-winning composer working on Fincher’s The Social Network. He and Atticus Ross made a great team as composers on many films.

As in later Fincher films like Zodiac and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Se7en had a flair for details. The various murders within the story all had many details attached to them, which made the detective aspects of the movie great. Hidden in plain sight and using time to help tell the story, Walker’s script is meticulously brought to life by Fincher and company. The props, makeup, and so forth were key in making this film look as real as possible. The locations looked great as well. The film was filled with nasty-looking apartments and alleys that looked like what the filmmakers were going for: a ‘70s look.

The cast of the movie, though pretty small, was effective in getting the story across perfectly to viewers. Freeman and Pitt were a great team of complete opposites in this story. One was a grizzled veteran of almost thirty-five years on the force, and the other was a newbie looking for something different than the small-time small-town work he was used to at this point in his career. They were vastly different. The latter, as Pitt played him, would learn a lot from Freeman’s character. Add Gweneth Paltrow and R. Lee Ermey to the mix, and you have a very good but underrated cast. Pitt used this film as a platform to do bigger and better things in his career. He also worked with Fincher a few times after this. This was early on for Freeman after The Shawshank Redemption, but his work with Clint Eastwood would define his career. He is magnificent in this movie, though.

With all great crime films, we have to consider the villains, and John Doe is one of the best put to the big screen in the last thirty years or so. Mostly shot in silhouette, Kevin Spacey’s John Doe character was very smug and aloof in his portrayal, similar to Spacey’s own personality. He has this kind of thing going on in his own person. The script allowed this kind of behavior, and Spacey played into that perfectly. There were moments that were just incredible regarding what he was doing and how he portrayed the character, but it was fascinating because of how different he was regarding the story he was set within. There was an interesting dichotomy when it came to that. Spacey had a knack for playing these types of characters, though. He was good at it.

As a fan of the ‘70s decade of films, I was so very enthralled by Se7en when I first saw it back in 1995. It had everything I was looking for in a film at that time in my life. It had a dark gritty, noir feeling to it. The dirty grimy, rainy look Fincher was going for made the film’s setting perfect for the story Walker was telling. The performances, though early on in the careers of both Freeman and Pitt, were both pretty amazing. They both would go on to bigger and better things, but this film would later become one of the best in both of their filmographies. This movie catapulted Fincher into public consciousness as a filmmaker to look forward to going forward. He wouldn’t let fans or critics down in the coming decades. 

Se7en, at the time, wasn’t a huge cultural hit, even though it made over three hundred million dollars at the worldwide box office. Many writers and filmmakers would try to copy the style and feel of this movie with little success. Fincher would define his career and give people something they would forever remember as a great crime thriller. As the years have gone by, film aficionados like myself have become more and more enamored with the overall aesthetic of this film. A great quote most people attribute to this movie is “What’s in the Box?” Sometimes it takes years for a film to catch on, and I believe that’s the case with this one.

5 Stars

Dan Skip Allen