Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.
Se7en (or
Seven) is an American crime / drama / horror / thriller film. It stars Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as detectives investigating a serial killer whose "work" is inspired by the seven deadly sins.
Tropes:
- And I Must Scream (Oh god, Sloth)
- Asshole Victim (The victims are chosen based on their negative traits)
- Better Than It Sounds Film
- Chekhovs Skill (Subverted with Somerset's knife-throwing practice; seen several times in the movie, but never given practical application.)
- Complete Monster (Oh god, John Doe.)
- Crapsack World (A main point of the film, though half-subverted at the end when Somerset states that the world is still worth fighting for, even if it is a shithole.)
- Death By Disfigurement
- Downer Ending
- Although, when you think about it from a Law & Order perspective, Mills could have argued for Extreme Emotional Disturbance - and seeing his wife's head in a box would definitely give some credence to that.
- Film Noir
- Fridge Brilliance (John Doe's message seems to be lost when you realize he murders a totally innocent woman who had not committed any deadly sins.)
- Not so fast—his murder of Tracy is because he is guilty of Envy and is also the linchpin of his Xanatos Gambit to turn Mills into Wrath and make his plan complete.
- Not all the victims were the sinners. Lust - sinner was trick and victim was hooker. Envy - sinner was John and victim was Tracy. Wrath - sinner was Mills and victim was John.
- Tracy wasn't the victim of the Envy murder. John was when he got a bullet in the head. Tracy was the victim of John's ENVY. Her place in the scheme is equivalent to the food the Gluttony victim gorged himself on or the underage girls the Sloth victim had sex with.
- Actually, given that John Doe was heavily inspired by Dante (duh), the fate of the Wrath victim makes perfect sense. In Dante's time, killing a man's wife and children was legally equal to killing him. In other words, a man sentenced to death could have his wife and children killed instead of himself. The idea was that taking away a man's family was as horrible a punishment as killing him. Therefore Brad Pitt's character is sentenced to death the same way the other six are, only in his case his wife and child are killed and he gets to live. When you look at it that way, John Doe's scheme was actually kind of brilliant.
- Fridge Logic (Doe is arguably more guilty of Pride and Wrath than either of those sins' respective "sinners")
- To his credit, with the exception of a slight meltdown in the squad car, Doe is actually quite calm and not really befitting of wrath.
- Gorn (Although it's mostly limited to Gory Discretion Shots)
- Hannibal Lecture ("It's more comfortable for you to label me insane")
- Informed Attribute Tracy says she married Mills because he was the funniest guy she ever met. We do not see a single example of his sense of humor. Being a cop in that horrific city might twist someone's sense of humor to Gallows Humor, but Mills is simply short-tempered and humorless.
- Karmic Death ( what the serial killer is aiming for, at least in theory)
- Knight In Sour Armor ((William Somerset's last line in the movie is the page quote))
- My Death Is Just The Beginning, by extension of the above.
- Letters 2 Numbers
- Narm (A lot of people have trouble taking the moments leading up to Doe getting shot seriously, between his Anvilicious speech to make Mills shoot him and the latter's whining ["WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOX?!"] and how he switches between "crying" and "straight" faces about five times.)
- Nightmare Fuel Unleaded (All of the murders)
- Sir Not Appearing In This Trailer (John Doe is played by Kevin Spacey)
- Serial Killer (John Doe is an extremely disturbing example)
- Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped ( According to John Doe, part of his motivation)
- Somerset And Mills
- Stuffed Into The Fridge ( Mills' wife)
- The Bad Guy Wins
- Vegeta And Kakarot (William Somerset and David Mills of Se7en, somewhat subverted in that the Vegeta is a fatherly mentor trying to harden the Kakarot's heart to the harsh realities of life, and in a further, darker subversion; the young and emotional Kakarot loses EVERYTHING to Big Bad and Complete Monster John Doe.
- World Half Empty
- Wretched Hive (The massive city where it takes place is a rainswept hell of apathy and suffering)
