Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24912 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-06-28
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Letterboxed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The most viscerally frightening and disturbing homicidal maniac picture since The Silence of the Lambs, Seven is based on an idea that's both gruesome and ingenious. A serial killer forces each of his victims to die by acting out one of the seven deadly sins. The murder scene is then artfully arranged into a grotesque tableau, a graphic illustration of each mortal vice. From the jittery opening credits to the horrifying (and seemingly inescapable) concluding twist, director David Fincher immerses us in a murky urban twilight where everything seems to be rotting, rusting, or moulding; the air is cold and heavy with dread. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are the detectives who skillfully track down the killer--all the while unaware that he has been closing in on them, as well. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey are also featured, but it is director Fincher and the ominous, overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere of doom that he creates that are the real stars of the film. It's a terrific date movie--for vampires. --Jim Emerson

DVD Description
DVD Special Features:

The Making of Seven
Trailer
Letterbox Ratio 2.35:1
Dolby Pro Logic
English subtitles

Synopsis
Gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust--these are the seven deadly sins that are being punished with unimaginable cruelty and calculation by an enigmatic killer in David Fincher's bleak thriller SEVEN. Set in a perpetually gloomy unnamed city, the film follows Somerset (Morgan Freeman), a retiring police detective, as he experiences his final week on the job, reluctantly working with assertive newcomer Mills (Brad Pitt). When an obese man is found brutally murdered in his home, the seasoned Somerset realizes this is no ordinary killing--someone tortured him because of his appetite. Slayings that reflect the sins of greed and sloth soon follow, leading Somerset and Mills on a desperate search to find the mysterious John Doe, who is responsible for these methodical murders. As the case builds to a startling conclusion, both Somerset and Mills become more involved than they ever could have imagined.
After a brief opening scene, SEVEN immediately cuts to a highly stylized title sequence. An intricate collage of books and photos, scissors and razors, and blood and skin eerily captures the dark, graphic tone of Fincher's intriguing mystery. The film cleverly avoids depicting most acts of violence onscreen, focusing instead on the cryptic remains of the crimes, allowing viewers to investigate along with the detectives. An example of nearly flawless filmmaking, the movie features a meticulously crafted screenplay, brilliant photography and design, sure-handed direction, and excellent performances from the entire cast. All of these elements combine to amazing effect in the film's unforgettably stunning finale.

Customer Reviews

"What's in the box?"
"Seven" stars Morgan Freeman as a gentle cop whose only a week away from retirement. Brad Pitt plays the brash young detective that has come to replace him. In their week together, they work on finding a serial killer whose victims are all tortured (gruesomely) and killed to illustrate the "seven deadly sins."
Freeman is wonderful, as always, playing a character similiar to his "Red" in The Shawshank Redemption: soft-spoken, patient, and wise. Pitt looks at ease playing the cocky, over-eager kid-cop. Gwyneth Paltrow has a small part as Pitt's wife. The killer is played by Kevin Spacey as a quiet, intelligent, insane madman.

The direction and photography are top-notch. The pace is quick, there are no wasted speeches or scenes. Because we know there will be seven murders, we are expecting, but never quite prepared for, the horrific crime scenes. The film was reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon, both very intense stories about serial killers. (I was also remined of Vincent Price's Dr. Phibes movies as well as Who is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe? Here again, the viewer knows there will be more killings following a definite pattern. These were played for laughs, however, and there are NO laughs in Seven.)

The ending took me by surprise, which is always good. I recommend Seven for viewers who want blood, gore, and excellent acting.

Dark and darker still...
Watching the trailer for this movie you would feel quite justified in dismissing it as just another cinema-by-numbers Hollywood offering, high on gore, low on IQ. Gory it may be, but to judge it on this criteria alone would be grossly unfair.

This is a truly remarkable picture which grabs you from the very outset and instills a deep sense of unease while regularly shocking you to the core. Apart from being brilliantly filmed, perfectly cast and expertly directed, it has a plot that truly defies convention. The rule book for the genre is tossed aside, allowing the film to build towards the most devastating denouement imaginable.

The setting is an unnamed US city in which justice and morality have become anachronisms, replaced by apathy and cynicism. Enter the main characters, Brad Pitt as the idealistic detective new to this urban hell, and Morgan Freeman as his world-weary partner. All that unites them is their task of catching a serial killer before he completes his self appointed destiny of avenging the seven deadly sins.

All performances are superb, and while Kevin Spacey takes many of the plaudits for his portrayal of the killer, Gwyneth Paltrow turns in a heart-rending cameo and Morgan Freeman adds genuine moral authority (not least with the movie's memorable closing line).

What unfolds is a conflict between two opposing responses to the ills of urban America, the extremism of Spacey, and the idealism of Pitt. All this in one of the most original and stylish thrillers ever made.

Clever, thought provoking and dark. Buy it.

Septenary of Horror.
"At first sin is a stranger in the soul; then it becomes a guest; and when we are habituated to it, it becomes as if the master of the house." - Tolstoy.

Although not originating from the bible, the concept of deadly sins is almost as old as Christian doctrine itself. Theologians like 4th century Greek monk Evagrius of Pontus first compiled catalogues of deadly offenses against the divine order, which 6th century pope Gregory the Great consolidated into a list of seven sins, which in turn formed the basis of the works of medieval/renaissance writers like St. Thomas Aquinas ("Summa Theologiae"), Geoffrey Chaucer ("Canterbury Tales"), Christopher Marlowe ("Dr. Faustus"), Edmund Spenser ("The Faerie Queene") and Dante Alighieri ("Commedia Divina"/"Purgatorio"). And in times when the ability to read was a privilege rather than a basic skill, the depiction of sin in paintings wasn't far behind; particularly resulting from the 16th century's reformulation of church doctrine, the works of artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder brought the horrific results of humankind's penchant to indulge in vice back into general consciousness with surrealistic eloquence, reminding their viewers that no sin goes unseen (Bosch, "The Seven Deadly Sins") and that its commission leads straight into a hell reigned by gruesome, grotesque demons and devils whose sole purpose is to torture those fallen into their hands (Bosch, "The Hay-Wagon" and "The Last Judgment;" Bruegel, "The Triumph of Death" and "The Tower of Babel").

More recently, the seven deadly sins have been the subject of Stephen Sondheim's play "Getting Away With Murder" and a ballet by George Balanchine ("Seven Deadly Sins"); and on the silver screen the topic has been addressed almost since the beginning of filmmaking (Cabiria [1914], Intolerance [1916]). Thus, "Se7en" builds on a solid tradition both in its own domain and in other art forms, topically as well as in its approach, denouncing society's apathy towards vice and crime. Yet - and although expressly referencing the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Chaucer and Dante - David Fincher's movie eschews well-trodden paths and grabs the viewer's attention from the beginning; and it does so not merely by the depiction of serial killer John Doe's (Kevin Spacey's) crimes, which could easily degenerate into a mindless bloodfest that would defeat the movie's purpose. (Not that there isn't a fair share of blood and gore on display; both visually and in the characters' dialogue regarding those details not actually shown; but Fincher uses the crimes' gruesome nature to create a sense of stark realism, rather than for shock value alone.) In addition, Doe's mindset is painstakingly presented by the opening credits' jumpy nature, his "lair"'s apocalyptic makeup and his notebooks, all of which were actually written out (at considerable expense), and whose compilation is shown underlying the credits. The movie's atmosphere of unrelenting doom is further underscored by a color scheme dominated by brown, gray and only subdued hues of other colors, and by the fact that almost every outdoors scene is set in rain. Moreover, although screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker explains on the DVD that the story was inspired by his observations in New York (and the movie was shot partly there, partly in L.A.), it is set in a faceless, nameless city, thus emphasizing that its concern isn't a specific location but society generally.

Central to the movie is the contrast between world-weary Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) who, while decrying the rampant occurrence of violence in society, for much of the movie seems to have resigned himself to his inability to do something meaningful about this (and therefore seems to accept apathy for himself, too, until his reluctant final turnaround), and younger Detective Mills (Brad Pitt), who fought for a reassignment to this particular location, perhaps naively expecting his contributions to actually make a difference; only to become a pawn in Doe's scheme instead and thus show that, given the right trigger, nobody is beyond temptation. As such, Somerset and Mills are not merely another incarnation of the well-known old-cop-young-cop pairing. Rather, their characters' development over the course of the film forces each viewer to examine his/her own stance towards vice.

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt perfectly portray the two detectives; while Freeman imbues his Will Somerset with a quiet dignity, professionalism and learning, muted by profound but not yet wholly irreversible resignation, Pitt's David Mills is a brash everyman from the suburbs with an undeniable streak of prejudice, a penchant for quick judgment and a thorough lack of sophistication, both personally and culturally. Notable are also the appearances of Gwyneth Paltrow (significantly Brad Pitt's real-life girlfriend at the time) as Mills's wife Tracy and ex-marine R. Lee Ermey as the police captain. Yet, from his very first appearance onwards, this is entirely Kevin Spacey's film. Reportedly, Brad Pitt especially fought hard for his casting; and it is indeed hard to imagine "Se7en" with anybody other than the guy who, that same year, also won an Oscar for portraying devilish Keyser Soze in "The Usual Suspects": No living actor has Spacey's ability to simultaneously express spine-chilling villainy, laconic indifference and limitless superiority with merely a few gestures and vocal inflections.

While "Se7en" can certainly claim the "sledgehammer" effect on its viewers sought by its fictional killer, the punishment meted out to Doe's victims - taking their perceived sins to the extreme - pales in comparison to that awaiting sinners according to medieval teachings. (Inter alia, gluttons would thus be forced to eat vermin, toads and snakes, greed-mongers put in cauldrons of boiling oil and those guilty of lust smothered in fire and brimstone.) Most serial killers have decidedly more mundane motivations than Doe. And after all, this is only a movie.

Right?

"Sin ... engenders vice by repetition of the same acts, [clouding the conscience and corrupting the judgment.] Thus sin tends to reproduce ... and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root." - Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994).