By the book

Se7en

(1995)

Funny. I'd been thinking for quite some time that I should test my initial dismissive--nay, revulsive--reaction to David Fincher's early medievalist serial-killer creeper, and it came up regularly on AMC's schedule, but I didn't want it dismembered by long commercial breaks, so I waited until it showed up on IFC . . . which now has long (4-minute!) and frequent commercial breaks (165-minute slot to accommodate a 127-minute film, and who knows how much they trimmed?). Talk about your deadly sins!

Anyway, when this was new, I was blown away by the opening titles but found the film despicable, pretty much pornographic. Was that one of those where-my-head-was-at-that-day judgments? Don't know, but this time I was impressed, the inescapable revulsion serving only to draw me closer to the standard issue cop team of the wizened, on-the-brink-of-retirement veteran (Morgan Freeman) and the idealistic, impulsive youngster (Brad Pitt). Even forfeiting the virginal surprises, I was carried along effectively by the turns of the plot, and fortunately, I didn't remember clearly the outcome of the will-he-or-won't-he climax.

But more than anything, here's what I was thinking: this is an LA that outsewers the NYC of Taxi Driver (well, actually, it's one of those Fincherian nowheres: mostly LA, with a desert outside, but also with a conspicuously noisy subway, which exists only to sink us another circle or two into hellishness), yet by the time it was released, weren't the rates of violent crime already coming down dramatically nationwide? So now I check, and yes, 1995 was the third year of the precipitous decline that would continue until 1999, then turn more gradual. So it might be said that Fincher released a film that already didn't mean as much as it had when he started it and stands even more now than then on technical and performative merits. Fortunately, those merits are pretty damned meritorious.