Reviews of "Seven Psychopaths" and "Safety Not Guaranteed"

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Martin McDonagh's debut film was "In Bruges" which has to be one of my favourite comedies of all time. Dark, beautiful and hilarious and the first film to reveal to me that Colin Farrell actually has talent after all. The first thing to say about "Seven Psychopaths" is that it isn't as good as "In Bruges". You cannot expect every film from a director to be the best film of all time. That being said, I did enjoy this very much. I will note however, that this is not the same situation as with"The Guard" (directed by Martin's brother John) where one of the main criticisms was also that "it's not as good as In Bruges". "Seven Psychopaths" is generally of a lower standard than either of those films. Still, at the time I noted that "The Guard" was arguably funnier than "In Bruges" yet lacking the same artistry, so perhaps it's not surprising that "Seven Psychopaths" falls slightly further short of excellence than those two now that Martin is trying to focus more on the comedy side of things.



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Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

In a recent post I was announcing how excited I was about the movie "Safety Not Guaranteed" (whose creators are about to work on a remake of my childhood favourite "Flight Of The Navigator"). Apparently the central advertisement around which the movie is based was really posted in a newspaper. Sure the person who posted it was lying. They did not have a time travel and so they were not really seeking companions for a trip back or forward in time. Still, the advert produced some really interesting responses, sometimes from ex-cons who wished they could tell themselves how not to get caught or to take other options in life, sometimes from those who'd lost loved ones and wanted to get another chance to talk to them or possibly save them, and in other cases the respondents were selling specific skills which they believed would be helpful during a trip through time. It seemed like there was no end to the scope for this film.




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