Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and the David Fincher film ‘Se7en’

We looked into the planning of a murder last Saturday when looking at Alfred Hitchcock‘s Dial M for Murder (1954). Today we extend the look into the madness of murder planning through the lens of a police procedural with a string of themed murders in the David Fincher movie Se7en (1995).

(From left, R. Lee Ermey as the police captain, Morgan Freeman as Detective Lieutenant William Somerset, Brad Pitt as Detective David Mills & Richard Roundtree as District Attorney Martin Talbot in the David Fincher movie Se7en).

The movie Se7en deals in the unlikely pairing of young police detective David Mills with experienced police detective and lieutenant William Somerset by their police captain. R. Lee Ermey portrayed the police captain that assigned Mills and Somerset together, combining know how and the experience of Somerset with the youth and exuberance of Mills. Brad Pitt portrayed Mills opposite Morgan Freeman‘s portrayal of Somerset.

(The seven deadly sins as referenced in the David Fincher movie Se7en).

At the time of the pairing, the case that grew into a connection of seven murders started as the final investigation for Somerset before he retired. Mills had just joined the unit in the New York City, New York neighborhood, having earned a bit of an investigational track record that wasn’t yet on par with Somerset. When there became a theme of repeating murders that grew past the original murder, a drama that would put these two men at the center of it would start to form.

(From left, Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy Mills and Brad Pitt as Detective David Mills in the David Fincher movie Se7en).

The two detectives did not see the world similarly with regards to police methodology, life experience, or much of a notion of liking one another. Sensing this false start, we as the audience are introduced to the family of David and Tracy Mills with William Somerset at Tracy’s urging. In the Mills’ home, we get a thawing of the Somerset and David Mills relationship over dinner and some comic relief around the youthful mistake of buying a home along the line of an elevated subway train. Gwyneth Paltrow portrayed Tracy Mills.

(From left, Morgan Freeman as Detective Lieutenant William Somerset and Kevin Spacey as John Doe in the David Fincher movie Se7en).

Both Tracy Mills and the New York Public Library factor into where the larger narrative of where this movie was headed. The character of John Doe, as portrayed by Kevin Spacey, is not introduced to the audience until well into the movie. The fate of John Doe, Detective Lieutenant Somerset, and the Mills couple is as potentially dark as the mystery underpinning the religious mythology that accompanies the notion of the seven deadly sins at the core of this movie.

(Director David Fincher is shown on the set of the movie Se7en. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, not pictured, wrote the screenplay for the David Fincher film).

The unfolding of the story that is Se7en struck me as powerfully written and well-paced. The movie holds up to multiple viewings, with the way things come together in resolving the underpinning mystery in a manner that quite possibly defies the expectation many viewers had coming into the film. It’s with regard for the cinematography as well as the storytelling that I offer David Fincher‘s Se7en 4.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Tom Hanks in the Steven Spielberg war film ‘Saving Private Ryan’

It has been 75-years and one-month since Operation Overlord, aka the Normandy Invasion of World War Two, occurred on June 6th, 1944. The movie Saving Private Ryan (1998) shows a highly realistic depiction of the human cost of a decisive invasion of World War Two, culminating in the central stories of a group of soldiers tasked with saving one soldier, Private James Francis Ryan, whose three brothers had died in separate battles of the same war.

(Left to Right Adam Goldberg as Private Mellish, Vin Diesel as Private Caparzo, Tom Sizemore as Sergeant Horvath, and Tom Hanks as Captain Miller in the film Saving Private Ryan).

The United States Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall, gives the order to alleviate the grief of Private James Francis Ryan’s mother shortly after the Normandy Invasion. It is Marshall who decides to send out 8 men (Captain Miller as played by Tom Hanks and select members from 2nd Rangers). These rangers had experienced the brutality of war in advance of the mission of mercy, and it was from their reputation for capability and excellence that many of these eight rangers would give their lives in saving the bereavement of a fourth child in seeking James Francis Ryan, as portrayed by Matt Damon.

(Barry Pepper as Private Jackson, left, and Giovanni Ribisi as T-4 Medic Wade in the film Saving Private Ryan).

The mission for bringing Private Ryan home takes the 8 men through Nazi occupied territory to establish contact with Ryan’s unit, an element of the 101st Airborne Division. The war thriller of a movie brings the reality of history’s bloodiest war does a remarkable and compassionate means of bringing the humanity of the soldiers and in some cases civilians into full emotional color. The reality of broken and lost families in a time of full blown war, and the emotional toll of a mission that poses the question of what is an appropriate cost for compassion. The film hits on multiple scores in showing a breadth of human emotion in excruciating detail that resonates for me.

(Matt Damon as Private James Francis Ryan, left, and Edward Burns as Private Reiben in the film Saving Private Ryan).

Matt Lynn Digital is a fan of movies produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, as was Saving Private Ryan. It is with high appreciation of the craft of this film that we recommend you see this film for its humanity, its truth, and that it steps out of the normal fare of a Steven Spielberg film while maintaining the moral compass that we appreciate in movies by this consummate maker of movies. Overall, I give Saving Private Ryan 4.5-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars.

Matt – Saturday, July 6, 2019