Tag: Richard Schiff

Seven (1995)

Darkly, unrelentingly unsettling, Fincher’s true-debut is an outstanding psychological thriller

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Brad Pitt (Detective David Mills), Morgan Freeman (Detective William Somerset), Gwyneth Paltrow (Tracy Mills), Richard Roundtree (DA Talbot), R. Lee Ermey (Police captain), John C McGinley (‘California’), Julie Araskog (Mrs Gould), Mark Boone Jnr (FBI man), John Cassini (Officer Davis), Reginald E. Cathey (Dr Santiago), Richard Schiff (Mark Swarr), Kevin Spacey (John Doe)

Set in a city where decency and humanity goes to die, daylight is a stranger and everything is covered with constant rainfall, Seven covers the most chilling week-in-the-life of two detectives. One, disillusioned William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), is counting down to his early retirement. The other, his cocksure replacement David Mills (Brad Pitt) thinks he’s unbeatable and indestructible. But they are going up against someone who will shake them to their core, a calculating serial killer dispatching victims he judges guilty of the seven deadly scenes, framing their bodies in grotesque rituals. Can they track him down before he completes his terrible work?

Seven is one of the finest, and most influential, of all serial killer films. Dark, haunting and relentless, it’s a perfect package of grim foreboding and nihilistic terror, expertly directed by David Fincher. Seven is very careful about what it shows you, trusting far more in the horror of suggestion and witnessing the reactions of the characters – you come out of it convinced you have seen more than you have. It never lets you relax for a moment, always dreading the worst – yet so many people never saw coming its infamous final act with its unexpected, horrifying, reveals and darkly, hope-free conclusion. Seven offers almost no comfort and never pets you at ease only a despairing look at how terrible the world can be and how desperate the struggle for goodness can be.

In a visual design that’s reminiscent of Blade Runner, the world of Seven is almost permanently dark, dingy and rain-soaked, the crime scenes filthy, terrifying haunted houses of grimness. The chaotic sounds of the city, mechanical and uncaring, are everywhere: Somerset even sleeps with a metronome ticking in an attempt to impose sone order on his world. The score uses base beats and near-industrial sound, the editing mixes smooth classic cuts and sudden shocks, the camera work is awash with tones from the green of greed to the blood red of lust. Not there there is any comfort in daylight, since the brightest, most open sequence of this claustrophobic film (even the Mills’ apartment violently shakes from passing trains, a subtle hint no where is safe) takes place in a pylon-stuffed field and it’s the most horrific, nihilistic of the lot.

Seven though is also darkly seductive: it plays on our fascination with the dark ‘genius’ of Hollywood killers, their love of patterns and the twisted purity of their quest for perfection. The film’s opening sequence, showing the killer’s preparations in a series of jagged, disorienting cuts, even places us in his perspective. When he is revealed, he mixes prissy politeness with dark, obsessive love for his work. Seven understands out fascination with the pattern killer – just as we were obsessed with Hannibal Lector and the Terminator, the guy in control is intriguing. It punishes us for this by stressing the horrific impact of his crimes and the traumatic impact on the survivors, is nihilistic ending even more effective for all the dark enjoyment the viewer has taken out of Seven’s grim momentum.

It’s also benefits hugely from its play on the conventions of the odd-couple detective pairing. Somerset and Mills are chalk-and-cheese: Somerset is calm, methodical and professionally distant, Mills is volcanic, lacks focus and becomes terribly personally invested. One of the films few touches of humanity and hope is the growing friendship between these two – slow-burning to say the least – that sees them go from butting heads to sharing jokes and supporting each other’s calls.

The performances are excellent. Brad Pitt (whose clout helped ensure producers couldn’t neuter the film’s shocking ending) is full of jittery energy masking his insecurity, doubt and fear; so worried about looking weak he resorts constantly to anger. Lacking patience (hilariously he can’t bring himself to read Dante and Chaucer, as Somerset recommends, instead resorting to hiding Cliff Notes books in his desk) he investigates the crimes with gusto, focused on the exterior not the interior. He can’t only see the killer as a lunatic, an under-estimation that makes him easy to manipulate.

The moral centre is Morgan Freeman’s Somerset, a superb performance. Somerset is completely disillusioned, convinced any trace of goodness in the world has disappeared. Despite this, events prove him wise (but not above terrible errors) and determined with a strong moral centre. He’s empathetic about crime in ways Mills isn’t (at an early crime scene, one of his first questions is if the victim’s kid has seen the body, a question dismissed as irrelevant by his colleagues) and investigates from inside the killer’s psyche, seeking to understand his motives. Perhaps no other film than Seven has given Freeman so perfect a vehicle, his expressive eyes full of sorrow and regret, his careful decency a mask of detachment that he slowly lets slip to Mills and his wife.

As that wife, Gwyneth Paltrow gives a striking, endearing and perfectly judged performance in a small but crucial role. Tracy Mills is the one unquestionably decent person in this crap-sack world, perhaps why she and Somerset are drawn together. Seven has a wonderfully quiet, humane moment in all this horror, when the two meet to discuss parenthood, a beautifully played exploration of doubt and fear from Paltrow and quiet semi-regret from Freeman. It’s a role pivotal for the film, Paltrow leaving a deeply tender impression on the viewer.

It’s vital for the film’s final act pay-off. Seven is perfectly constructed, both in its pacing of the murders and in not dragging out the mystery of the motive too long (it knows, of course, that everyone watching the film is ahead of the detectives on that score). It’s crammed with stand-out sequences: a SWAT team house storming promises drama but turns into a dark twist on the wrong-door routine; a chase sequence after a chance encounter with the unseen killer gives a perfect shot of adrenalin. It’s all unbalancing us for a shockingly unexpected move by the killer (the actor’s identity carefully kept a secret in advance, meaning his reveal is a genuine shock for the uninitiated) leading to its horrifically nihilistic ending that I defy anyone to anticipate (except its now probably as famous as the identity of Rosebud or Keyser Soze).

Seven is astonishingly brave in all its pulsating thrills and perfectly judged tension for offering very little hope. This is a film where good is essentially powerless against evil: Somerset is too detached to beat evil, Mills so invested in his own black-and-white world he’s easy prey for the coldly manipulative. The film’s conclusion is a punch to the gut, but logical in a film where we’ve seen ordinary people indifferent to the worst of humanity and evil being so devilishly determined and ingenious in its actions no one stands a chance to beat it. You can criticise Seven for its small beats of misogyny: while Tracy is pure, like a fairy-tale princess, the two female victims are a shallow, preening model while the lust victim is not the man who uses prostitutes but the prostitute herself – an attitude we shouldn’t be surprised the killer has, but is unquestioned by any of the (all-male) investigators. (I was uncomfortable with this when I first saw it in the nineties, and time hasn’t changed my mind).

But aside from that, Seven is a darkly compelling masterpiece, a brilliantly unsettling film from David Fincher, at last allowed to deliver a film that exactly matched his vision (in a way Alien 3 did not). The battle to keep its nihilistic dark and shocking ending was a battle well-won, and it makes for a film that is a chilling exploration of evil in the world as well as a compelling, darkly-bloody film noir set in a world of unrelenting hopelessness. One of the greatest serial killer films ever made.

Deep Impact (1998)

It’s the end of the world in Deep Impact

Director: Mimi Leder

Cast: Robert Duvall (Captain Spurgeon “Fish” Tanner), Téa Leoni (Jenny Lerner), Morgan Freeman (President Tom Beck), Elijah Wood (Leo Biederman), Vanessa Redgrave (Robin Lerner), Maximilian Schell (Jason Lerner), James Cromwell (Alan Rittenhouse), Ron Eldard (Commander Oren Monash), Jon Favreau (Dr Gus Partenza), Laura Innes (Beth Stanley), Mary McCormack (Andy Baker), Bruce Weitz (Stuart Caley), Richard Schiff (Don Biederman), Betsy Brantley (Ellen Biederman), Leelee Sobieski (Sarah Hochtner), Blair Underwood (Mark Simon), Dougray Scott (Eric Vennekor)

Sometimes two Hollywood studies have the same ideas at the same time. When this happened in 1974 they clubbed together and turned two scripts about burning skyscrapers into one movie – The Towering Inferno. But it’s more likely they’ll do what happened with volcano movies in 1997, White House invasion movies in 2013 and asteroids movies in 1998: both make a film and rush to be the first one out. Usually that’s the winner (ask Dante’s Peak or Olympus Has Fallen). The exception was Deep Impact which made plenty of moolah – but was trumped by Michael Bay’s thundering Armageddon, with its far more straight-forward feel-good action.

A meteor is heading towards the Earth – and it’s an Extinction Level Event (ELE) that will wipe out all life on Earth. World governments keep it hushed up, wanting to avoid mass panic, and start planning to preserve mankind. Underground “arks” will be built in major countries to protect a small number of population. And a manned space mission, crewed by a team of young bucks and veteran astronaut Spurgeon “Fish” Tanner (Robert Duvall), will head out to the asteroid to try and use a nuclear bomb to blow it up. However news leaks when intrepid young MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) stumbles on news of a cabinet resignation, over a mysterious “Ellie”, leading to her accidentally uncovering the meteor. President Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) announces all to the world – and mankind prepares, in hope, for the disaster.

Deep Impact is a well-mounted and surprisingly thoughtful adventure story, that tries to deal with its Earth-ending themes with a seriousness and humanity that’s a world away from the flag-waving crash-bangs of Armageddon. Well directed by Mimi Leder, who juggles effectively huge special effects and low-key personal stories (even if these have the air of movie-of-the-week to them), it’s an ensemble piece with a surprisingly downer ending (no surprise from the poster) that still leaves more than a touch of hope that mankind will persevere.

It’s poe-faced seriousness about reflecting on the end of the world may be dwarfed now by superior TV shows – it’s hardly The Leftovers – but felt quite daring for a 90s blockbuster, at least trying to be some sort of meditation on the end of the world. While the film does do this by focusing on the most mundane of soapy dramas – will Jenny Lind (Téa Leoni in a truly thankless role) manage to reconcile with her estranged father (Maximilian Schell, a bizarre choice but who manages to rein in most of the ham) who walked out on her and her mother (Vanessa Redgrave, if possible an even more surreal choice) before the world ends – at least it’s sort of trying.

Soap also soaks through the storyline about young Leo Biedermann (Elijah Wood), the geeky wünderkid who discovers the asteroid. The drama around a national lottery to select the chosen (very) few who will join the 200,000 essential scientists, artists and politicians in the bunker is boiled down to whether Leo will be able to sneak his girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski) and her family on the list. Needless to say, this plotline boils down into a desperate chase, some heroic sacrifices and a great deal of tears. This sort of stuff doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but it makes for familiar cinema tropes among the general “end-of-the-world” seriousness.

There isn’t much in the way of humour in Deep Impact, perhaps because those making it were worried cracking a joke might undermine the drama. There’s nothing wrong with this, but you start to notice more the film’s “not just another blockbuster” mindset being warn very firmly on its sleeve. The film’s third major plotline, around the mission to blow up the asteroid, is as much about whether grizzled, wise vet Robert Duvall will win the respect of the dismissive young bucks he’s crewed with (spoilers he does) as it is whether they will destroy the meteor. Anyone who can’t see sacrifices coming here btw, hasn’t seen enough films – but these moments when they come carry a fair emotional wallop, partly because the film never puts its tongue in its cheek.

It’s a film proud of its scientific realism, which makes it slightly easy to snigger at the sillier moments – especially when it takes itself so seriously. An astronomer (played by The Untouchables luckless Charles Martin Smith) drives to his death racing to warn the authorities (why not just call them from his office eh?). The astronauts, for all their vaulted training, hit the meteor surface with all the blasé casualness of high-school jocks. Jenny’s journalistic investigation is so clumsy and inept, it’s hilarious watching the President and others assume she’s way more clued up than she is (this also comes from a time when Jenny could key in “E.L.E.” into the Internet and get one result – I just tried it and got 619 million. Simpler times).

I’ve been hard on this film, but honestly it’s still a very easy film to like. Sure it’s really silly and soapy but it takes itself seriously and it wants to tell a story about people and human relationship problems, rather than effects, which is praiseworthy in itself. The best moments go to the experienced old pros, with Duvall rather good as Tanner and Morgan Freeman wonderfully authoritative as the President (it was considered daring at the time to have a Black President). The special effects when the meteor arrives (spoiled on the poster and the trailer) are impressive and while it’s easy to tease, you’ll still welcome it every time it arrives on your TV screen.

Made in Dagenham (2010)

Up the Women! British comedy wallows in nostalgia but tells a still relevant tale of sexual equality

Director: Nigel Cole

Cast: Sally Hawkins (Rita O’Grady), Bob Hoskins (Albert), Miranda Richardson (Barbara Castle), Geraldine James (Connie), Rosamund Pike (Lisa Hopkins), Andrea Riseborough (Brenda), Jamie Winstone (Sandra), Daniel Mays (Eddie O’Grady), Richard Schiff (Robert Tooley), Rupert Graves (Peter Hopkins), Kenneth Cranham (Monty Taylor), Nicola Duffett (Eileen), Lorraine Stanley (Monica), Roger Lloyd-Pack (George), Andrew Lincoln (Mr Clarke)

You’d like to think a film made ten years ago about a strike for equal pay in the 1960s would be more of a history piece than something that still carries real relevance today. But this is still a world where women are often paid less than a man, and where their work is often devalued or held as less “important” than their male counterparts. Made in Dagenham looks at all these issues with a rose-tinted, feel-good stance that aims to entertain first and make you think second. Nothing wrong with that, but it means the film is largely just a crowd-pleaser, when you feel it could be more.

At the Ford factory in Dagenham, the female sewing machinists are not paid as skilled workers, and are forced to accept less work. Frustrated at the patronising attitude from their all-male union reps, and encouraged by foreman Albert (Bob Hoskins, lovely in one of his cuddliest performances), the women decide to go on strike for equal play, led by Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins). As public attention builds, the Ford owners in America mobilise for a battle and the strike attracts the interest of Secretary for Employment Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson), someone who knows the struggles a woman faces in a man’s world.

It’s no great surprise based on the fluffy, charming tone of this film that Nigel Cole’s previous credit was Calendar Girls. (Also no surprise that, like that film, this has been turned into a crowd-pleasing stage musical.) William Ivory’s script deftly sketches out some familiar movie-dynamics for its characters, establishes clear heroes and villains, gives us a good sprinkling of information and “things to think about”, mixes in at least one tragic sub-plot and provides a steady stream of high points, heart-string tugging moments and punch the air moments. As a piece of writing playing to the masses, it’s pretty flawless.

It’s in love with the 1960s details, with nostalgia dialled up to 11, with a love of the look, feel and styles of the era and plenty of sound cues mixed in that will have you tapping your toes. It’s all designed for you to have fun, and if that means some of the deeper questions get a bit lost at points, that doesn’t really matter.

And there is more than enough enjoyable material to be seen in setting up a series of bigoted or patronising men (gamely played principally by Kenneth Cranham and Rupert Graves) and seeing them knocked down. You could argue that a slightly braver film would touch at the implications of what Richard Schiff’s corporate big-hitter says about equal pay: make it more expensive to make cars here and we will make our cars somewhere else. (In fact it was pretty hard to forget that, watching the film today, as Brexit has already caused at least three major car factory closures in the UK. In fact the film is very happy to talk all about equal pay for women in the Western World but never even raises the question of how we are quite content to have people in the third world slave away in conditions far worse than this for a few pennies an hour.) But that’s not the film’s point, and instead it’s all about those male-female relationships.

Sally Hawkins does a good job as a woman slowly growing a social and political awareness and then turning that new-found enlightenment on her own domestic life with well-meaning but of-his-time husband Eddie (a sweet but cluelessly sexist Daniel Mays). It’s all conventional stuff, but Hawkins and Mays play it very well.

The real meat actually comes from plotlines elsewhere. Rosamund Pike is excellent as a woman with a first in history from Oxford, reduced to wheeling out nibbles for her patronising husband and keeping her ideas to herself. Geraldine James and Roger Lloyd-Pack get the tragic plotline of a couple struggling with his post-war undiagnosed PTSD, which gets most of the heart-string tugging.

Eventually all is made well by Miranda Richardson’s Barbara Castle, floating into the picture to wave a magic wand and save the women’s bacon. Richardson thoroughly enjoys herself in a rather cardboard role, at least two scenes of which are solid exposition, in which Castle’s lecturing of two uppity civil servants is used to introduce the political context. By the end you won’t be surprised that good triumphs. But it’s a film which largely only looks to put a smile on your face, and doesn’t really look at the wider implications or injustices of unequal pay. To the film’s credit it has a final montage of the real Ford women talking about their lives and the battles they had to be respected, which gives it a bit of extra depth. A truly brave film would have found a few minutes – and that’s all it really needs – to look at the wider issues (then and today) economically and socially, and to make us think a little. As it is this just entertains, which is what you want, but it could be more.