Sidney Lumet's Oscar-winning drama about a bank robbery gone curiously wrong is notable for many reasons, not least that it's based on a true story - and an all the more fascinating one when set against the heady, complicated and chaotic sociological backdrop of 1970s America at the time. But it's the revelation of what's in that box that everyone remembers. Eventually, to placate the studio, Fincher tagged on a forgettable quote from Ernest Hemingway. One alternate version had the soon-to-retire Somerset killing Doe, preventing him from winning. Understandably, the studio felt uneasy with the ending, and several rewrites were proposed but never shot. When Doe reveals to David that she was pregnant, there's no turning back.
But if Mills executes Doe, he unwittingly completes his twisted series of slayings.
John Doe (Kevin Spacey) baits Mills, inciting him to take vengeance, to become wrath. If that wasn't shocking enough, now comes the dilemma. The audience learns that it contains the severed head of Tracey (Gwyneth Paltrow) at the same time as her husband, Mills (Brad Pitt).
Somerset (Morgan Freeman) opens the blood-damp box, but we don't get to see what it contains. The closing four minutes of Se7en are an unbearable symphony of suspense. In a scene that tragically echoes a legendary military photograph, and to the heartbreaking score of Adagio for Strings, Elias falls, forsaken for both an internal and external conflict that's futile at every turn. As their rivalry escalates, Barnes secretly guns him down in cold blood before callously walking away and declaring him dead.Īs the platoon helicopters out, they turn to see a sole, lonely figure running into the clearing, flanked by countless Vietcong soldiers. Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) had been one of the few good men in the battalion, defending Taylor (Charlie Sheen) when he's being bulled, and clobbering Sergeant Barnes for his immoral approach to Vietnamese interrogation. Inspired by the director's own tour of duty in Vietnam, Oliver Stone's 1986 war classic brings the barbaric nature of the guerilla conflict - and its morality-skewing mental effect on the American soldiers - to life in unsettling, disturbing style, including one death scene that's visually and contextually iconic. Perfectly paced, brilliantly timed and seamlessly executed, the rooftop gunfight blended the very best of Eastern and Western cinema to fan-pleasing effect and created stunt standards (such as the midair freeze and rotating camera) that continue to be aped to this day. With the rules of physics up for grabs, Neo and his rebellious group ricochet from one amazing action sequence to the next, but it was the culmination of a spectacularly freewheeling lobby attack that helped jaws hit the floor.
And while slo-mo was nothing new, the way in which the Wachowski Brothers and choreographer Yuen Wo Ping utilised it for their philosophy-flirting sci-fi sparked an SFX revolution and placed the franchise on the movie map for good.Īfter a brief lesson in Reality 101, cyber-messiah Neo (Keanu Reeves) becomes aware that the world he inhabits is nothing more than an elaborate computer program - and one that can be exploited. Robinson, You're Trying to Seduce MeĪfter years of explosion-heavy special effects, die-hard action fans were getting weary.