Se7en

This week marks the 25th anniversary of Seven (stylized as Se7en, a film that has been celebrated, especially by young film geeks. It was David Fincher's second film, after Alien 3, and the cinematography by Darius Khondji is extremely dark, in dimly-lit rooms, at night, and rain. Ironically, the last scene, which has a devastating twist, is in bright sunshine, but it still appears cold.

The script, by Andrew Kevin Walker, was ingenious. He was working at Tower Records when he sold it, a good reminder to keep writing that screenplay, because anything can happen. Really, it's amazing no one came up with this idea before--a serial killer who bases his victims on the seven deadly sins. A morbidly obese man is stuffed with food until he bursts (gluttony); a model is disfigured, and left alive with a phone glued in one hand and a bottle of sleeping pills in the other. She chooses suicide, representing pride/ And so on.

Working on the case are an odd couple. Morgan Freeman is Somerset, calm and brainy, while Brad Pitt is Mills, a hot-head. They don't like each other, but make a good team. They use library records, seeing who checked out books that deal with the seven deadly sins, and go the man's apartment, and get shot at for their troubles. But with two sins left to go, the killer turns himself in (spoiler alert, it's Kevin Spacey) who says he will lead them to the last two victims, out in the desert in a field of wires on towers. We get what is now known as the "What's in the box" ending, which I won't spoil here, but suffice it to say Spacey has cards up his sleeve.

Se7en was a dark film literally, and figuratively. The unnamed city is presented as a place of misery (it was shot in Los Angeles, but could be any crime-ridden burg. Freeman is ready to retire, and when asked how long he has lived there and says "Too long," but Pitt was eager to be transferred there, probably because as a homicide detective he'd be busy. His wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, hates it immediately, especially when she finds out she's pregnant.

There had been many films about serial killers who taunt the police with clues, like The Silence Of The Lambs, but that film is sunny compared to Se7en, which was a seminal film in the genre, influencing films in the future. It was also a big smash, earning over 300 million at the box office, and while it only gained one Oscar nomination, it did win the MTV Movie Award for Best Picture, indicating the age of most of its viewers.