Aug. 26: 7

Se7en is one of my favourite movies of the 1990s. The only movie that comes close to it is Falling Down. My worldview is Christian and that means that I see a lot of moral issues in terms of black and white. There's not a whole lot of gray with me.

So when I see a movie that challenges me, I am delighted. Se7en is riveting cinema and everyone should see it. Among the life lessons it teaches is that you can't kill someone without simultaneously judging them.

Se7en stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey in the best performances of their careers. It is a cop movie about two homicide detectives looking for a serial killer who is taking his inspiration from the seven deadly sins. The ending is electrifying and it almost didn't happen. Studio executives weren't happy about the depressing denouement and they ordered a script change that had Brad Pitt's character racing home just in time to intercept the killer and stop him from turning his wife into mincemeat. Had it been filmed that way, it would have become just another paint-by-numbers mediocre thriller like Fatal Attraction.

Instead, Se7en is a gritty cult classic that should have cleaned up at the Oscars and deserves to be watched a hundred years from now.


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