Se7en (1995)

In director David Fincher's grisly, neo-noir, psychological crime thriller, a patterned series of murders were exhibited and displayed at each murder scene in an unnamed, decaying, and rainy city underworld. They were inspired and set up to represent each of the Seven legendary Deadly Sins (gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath). The very black suspense thriller and police procedural was Fincher's second theatrical feature film following his poorly-received sci-fi film Alien³ (1992) - the series' second sequel. Fincher's first films were often music videos in the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s.

The narrative of the formulaic script by American screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker portrayed rampant city crime with a very gruesome and shocking twist ending. None of the first six 'deadly sin' crimes were seen committed on-screen, but the aftermath of the killings and various autopsies were often pictured in very gruesome and unpleasant detail. The visually dark and grim film set up a contrast between two mismatched or 'odd-couple' detectives - a calm and methodical veteran cop who was about to retire, and his idealistic, hot-headed replacement who felt he had to always prove himself. They both participated in the hunt for a diabolical, methodical, violent and sociopathic serial killer who had staged multiple murders.

On a budget of approximately $33 million, the film grossed $100.1 million (domestic) and $327.2 million (worldwide). The well-crafted film also received one Academy Award nomination - Best Film Editing (Richard Francis-Bruce). The intensely-dark cinematography by Darius Khondji and the musical score by Howard Shore added to the film's sense of dread and menace. The film's taglines were: "Let he who is without sin try to survive," and "Seven deadly sins. Seven ways to die." The murders took place over a period of seven days.

• the meticulous character of soon-to-retire, world-weary veteran Det. Lt. William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) was clearly depicted; after 32 years of service, he was going about his orderly and precise morning routine in his furnished bachelor apartment, only seven days before his retirement; he carefully tied his tie in front of a mirror, then methodically picked up items all laid out in a row (from l to r): his handkerchief with a piece of cut-out wallpaper depicting a rose, his gold homicide badge, his switchblade knife, his pen, and his eye-glasses case; he removed a fleck from his sportscoat before picking it up from his neatly-made bed, and then shut off the light on his nightstand where there was a wooden, pyramidical metronome (used as a sleep aid to drown the city's noise by its rhythmic ticking, and a symbol of the passing of time)
• Det. Somerset's first bloody crime scene of the day was the result of a domestic dispute ("crime of passion"), coldly described by Det. Taylor (Daniel Zacapa) to Somerset; the argument ended with the shotgun blast-killing of the husband by the wife; the male corpse was pictured on the floor [Note: The victim was a cameo portrayed by the film's scriptwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker.]
• during a transition period for homicide investigator Somerset as he was soon retiring, his rookie replacement arrived at the crime scene; the young, headstrong, arrogant, brash and hotshot young Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) was quite different from the wise, perceptive, patient, empathetic and methodical Somerset; he learned that Mills had "fought to get reassigned" or transferred to Somerset's precinct, and bragged about his five years of experience in homicide; Somerset urged Mills: "I want you to look and I want you to listen"

A Few Glimpses of Some of the Images in the Opening Title Credits Sequence

• the opening title credits sequence was artistically designed and directed by Kyle Cooper - it was composed of numerous clues to the film presented in striking, unnerving and unforgettable, close-up images; the white-colored titles themselves were either drawn by hand or produced on a manual typewriter; often, the frames flickered and were scratched or fuzzy:
  • the first image was of the opened and turning pages of a personal journal, followed by a picture of a pair of crippled or gnarly hands
  • the antagonist (serial killer) cut or shaved off the skin of his fingertips (later covered with bandages) with a rusty razor blade, to avoid leaving fingerprints
  • a pen was seen writing cryptic lines in a school composition book or journal; in one instance, written text was crossed out with a black marker, as were the eyes of a pictured young boy (and then his entire face), in certain instances, the words "pregnant," "heterosexual intercourse" and "transexual" were blackened out
  • a strip of film and Polaroid photographs were trimmed with a pair of scissors above a book article titled: "What is a Transexual and How Is He Different From a Heterosexual?", and then placed inside the journal-diary
  • a needle and thread sewed and stitched together the pages of a journal into a book; also a human hair was picked up with a pair of tweezers and placed in a transparent, plastic sleeve or wrapper, seen above pictures of half-dressed boys (one had his eyes blackened out)
  • the word "GOD" was excised from an upside-down "In God We Trust" motto on US currency
  • the collection of individual books or journals were stacked together
• each of the seven days in the last week of Det. Lt. Somerset's employment were titled on the screen, beginning with Monday
• the first three (of the 7 murders) were discovered - Monday:

The First Three Crime Scenes - Representing Some of the Seven Deadly Sins
Gluttony	Greed	Sloth

• 1. Gluttony - the manacled, obese victim (Bob Mack) was found lying face-down with his head in a bowl of spaghetti; he had been forced to feed himself to death, with a bucket of vomit next to him; a blow to his engorged stomach forced him to hemorrhage; his dark and dingy apartment was filled with rotting food, flies, and roaches; to Det. Somerset, it looked like the start of something sinister; during a second visit to the scene, the word "GLUTTONY" was scrawled in grease on the kitchen wal
• 2. Greed - the victimized wealthy defense attorney Eli Gould (Gene Borkan), found on Tuesday, had suffered lethal bloodletting after one pound of flesh on the sides of his body had been sliced off; the word "GREED" was spelled out in blood on the floor
• to Det. Somerset, it appeared to him that the two murders were connected to the 7 Deadly Sins, and that there would probably be five more victims; one of the clues in the second murder led them to the lawyer's wife Mrs. Gould (Julie Araskog), who noticed a picture of her upside-down painting in her husband's office; behind the painting, they found a series of fingerprints that belonged to a former criminal; they sought out the felon, and came upon a third murder scene
• 3. "SLOTH" - Mills and Somerset entered with flashlights and guns as they came upon a dark, smelly crime scene; with a SWAT team, the two entered a seemingly-empty apartment (# 306) with hundreds of scented air-freshener magic trees hanging from the ceiling; under a blanket on a bed (when it was pulled away) was skeletal victim Theodore "Victor" Allen (Michael Reid Mackay); the ex-drug dealer and pedophilic child molester had been tortured and emaciated for an entire year while strapped and bound onto the bed to suffer a slow death; Victor had been defended in a case by Eli Gould (see above); he was being given minor amounts of IV drugs and medications; his emaciation was chronicled by snapshots taken by the killer
• Victor’s left hand had been severed and was used to write the words “Help Me” on the wall in the previous crime scene (for "GREED"), thus providing fingerprints; as SWAT team leader John McGinley bent over the corpse and whispered close to the body's face: "You got what you deserved," the drug-dealing, seemingly-dead pedophile slightly rose up and gave a death-rattling gasp and cough - a major jump-scare, revealing to everyone's shock that he was still alive
• the film's best acted sequence was a Friday diner scene at 7 pm between Somerset and Mills' unhappily-relocated, lonesome schoolteacher wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt's real-life girlfriend at the time) who had just moved to the city from upstate; she confided in him about her unrevealed pregnancy - he advised her that the city was no place for a family, and that if she aborted, she shouldn't tell her husband that she had been pregnant; if she went ahead with the delivery, however, he urged her to inform Mills and added: "You spoil that kid every chance you get"; Somerset was still regretful about his own advice to his ex-girlfriend years earlier to seek an abortion
• Mills made a chance remark ("And just because the f--ker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda"); the comment led to Somerset speculating that the killer might have a library card; he visited a library to look into books that the killer may have read, such as Dante’s Divine Comedy , Milton's Paradise Lost, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; he was also spurred to use FBI resources to research who might be checking out those library books that referred to the subject of the '7 Deadly Sins'
• the findings led both detectives to the apartment of John Doe (an unbilled Kevin Spacey) who fired on them; during a chase after Doe, Mills fell from a fire escape, and Doe struck him with a tire iron, but after threatening to shoot Mills dead, Doe left him and fled - possibly because he had further plans for Mills and wanted him alive
• inside Doe's apartment, a search discovered a religious shrine, lots of cash, 2,000 of the suspect's hand-written diary-notebooks, Sloth's severed hand, and photos of the Gluttony victim; (one picture had been taken of the two detectives by an elusive photographer-journalist at the SLOTH crime scene - it was actually the killer himself!)
• they found the next series of crime scenes - beginning on a Saturday:
  • 4. Lust - a victimized prostitute/masseuse (Cat Mueller) in a massage parlor was murdered by a severely-distressed and crazed man (Leland Orser) who had been forced at gunpoint to rape and kill the sex worker; the traumatized 'John' was ordered by the serial killer to strap on a dildo with a knife blade in place of a phallus
  • 5. Pride - a pretty model Rachel Slade (Heidi Schanz) had her face disfigured, mutilated, and sliced, and her nose had been cut off; she suicidally chose to kill herself in her bedroom with an overdose of sleeping pills (rather than phoning an ambulance for help
• back at the police station on Sunday, John Doe unexpectedly and voluntarily turned himself in - a startling, last-reel revelation; he walked in, yelled out repeatedly to rookie Detective Mills : "DETECTIVE!" and then admitted: "You're looking for me"; obviously he had just committed another crime because his shirt was spattered with blood; with his hands out, he was surrounded by cops with guns drawn as he was ordered to kneel and then lie prostrate on the floor; as he obeyed and was lying on the floor, he calmly asked: "I'd like to speak to my lawyer, please"; he had also cut off the tips of his fingers, making it impossible to find any usable prints in his apartment

Serial Killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) Inside the Police Station: "You're looking for me"

• the maniacal serial killer bargained with the officers; he voluntarily offered to surrender and confess, but only if he was permitted to escort Somerset and Mills to a secret, undisclosed location where he promised to reveal the location of the last two bodies (representing Envy and Wrath) and give his confession; otherwise, he threatened to plead insanity (and thus escape punishment)
• in the unforgettable, nail-biting, concluding climax, John Doe was driven by Detective Mills and Somerset to a remote desert area marked by power cable towers; in his monologue to the detectives during the ride, he claimed he had no remorse for his crimes since his victims deserved death; he believed that he was God's chosen martyr as an attention-grabbing way to teach others about their apathetic attitudes toward sin; he also showed cryptic antagonism toward Detective Mills
• at the remote location as they stood in an open desert area, a delivery van approached; as Mills guarded Doe, Somerset went to speak to the driver, who told him that he had been paid $500 to deliver a cardboard box to Det. Mills at that location at exactly 7 pm; it was Doe's 6th sick and gruesome murder, including a souvenir; Somerset opened the box and was horrified - he told Mills to stand back, and ordered Doe to shut up - and even tried to silence him by slapping him
• Doe confessed that he represented the sin of 6. Envy - his intense feeling about Mills and his wife: "I wish I could have lived like you did...I'm trying to tell you how much I admire you and your pretty wife...Tracy...It's disturbing how easily a member of the press can purchase information from the men in your precinct... I visited your home this morning after you'd left. I tried to play husband. I tried to taste the life of a simple man"; he implied that the box contained the severed head of Mills' pregnant wife Tracy: "It didn't work out so I took a souvenir - her pretty head"
• after the murder, Doe told how he instructed Tracy's decapitated head (never shown) to be delivered to their location in the middle of the desert: ("Because I envy your normal life, it seems that Envy is my sin")
• the last of the Seven Deadly Sins (7. Wrath) was luridly demonstrated by anguished and angered Lt. Mills who was bound to seek vengeance; his partner Detective Somerset begged him not to, and ordered him to put away his gun, but to no effect: "That's what he wants. He wants you to shoot him...If you kill him, he will win"; Doe kept pressing: "Become vengeance, David...Become Wrath...She begged for her life, Detective. She begged for her life and for the life of the baby inside of her. (To Somerset, with some pleasure) Oh, he didn't know"
• the distraught Mills went ahead and shot Doe in the head, and then emptied his gun of five bullets into Doe's body, in exchange for his pregnant wife's beheading; as Mills was taken into custody for the shooting and driven away, Somerset declared to Police Captain (R. Lee Ermey) that he wouldn't be quitting after all; he had been roused out of his apathy and would continue to fight for good; he had reevaluated his decision to retire: "Whatever he needs...I'll be around"
• Det. Somerset delivered the film's final words (in voice-over): "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part"
• the closing credits scrolled down instead of upwards