Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 22, 2021 3:11:23 GMT
It's a great movie somewhat in spite of its screenplay, which is solid but not exceptional. The script falls into a lot of tropes that were already tropes at the time of this movie. You've got the wise, older cop coming up on retirement teaming up with the cocky short-tempered younger cop. You've got a serial killer with a gimmick - bonus points if it ties into a motive of "the world sucks." Third act twist, and voila. What sets the movie apart, aside from it executing all of those tropes admirably (every other film of this ilk fucks up somewhere, usually with the twist), is just how much Freeman and Fincher elevate it.
Morgan Freeman feels biologically engineered to give everything gravitas through his voice and general grandfatherly presence, and this fits alongside The Shawshank Redemption as the finest example of that unique talent. You give any other actor that stuff about the seven deadly sins and it would come off as hokey exposition, but Freeman lends it the authority necessary to make you buy into it (pretty important since it's the premise of the entire movie).
Meanwhile, Fincher pulls out all the stops to fill out and populate this world, from defining the '90s grungy serial killer aesthetic that haunts the genre to this day to wonderful character actor showcases to provide additional character. He takes what is on the page a relatively confined story with not much of an outside world (aside from the victims who are, well, almost all dead) and builds the bleak world to support the loftier ambitions of the film's fatalism.
Of course, other parts of the film are good aside from just those two. Pitt, Paltrow, and Howard Shore's score all put in good work. Spacey puts in excellent work, though he is helped by not showing up until the third act by which point the film is firing on all cylinders and you're either with it or not. The title sequence is also astounding and foreshadowed the perfect marriage of Fincher and Trent Reznor as collaborators later on.
Morgan Freeman feels biologically engineered to give everything gravitas through his voice and general grandfatherly presence, and this fits alongside The Shawshank Redemption as the finest example of that unique talent. You give any other actor that stuff about the seven deadly sins and it would come off as hokey exposition, but Freeman lends it the authority necessary to make you buy into it (pretty important since it's the premise of the entire movie).
Meanwhile, Fincher pulls out all the stops to fill out and populate this world, from defining the '90s grungy serial killer aesthetic that haunts the genre to this day to wonderful character actor showcases to provide additional character. He takes what is on the page a relatively confined story with not much of an outside world (aside from the victims who are, well, almost all dead) and builds the bleak world to support the loftier ambitions of the film's fatalism.
Of course, other parts of the film are good aside from just those two. Pitt, Paltrow, and Howard Shore's score all put in good work. Spacey puts in excellent work, though he is helped by not showing up until the third act by which point the film is firing on all cylinders and you're either with it or not. The title sequence is also astounding and foreshadowed the perfect marriage of Fincher and Trent Reznor as collaborators later on.