Director Martin McDonagh (In Bruge) reteams with Colin Farrell who this time plays Marty, an alcoholic screenwriter, balancing out (and I use the term lightly) his two best friends Billy (Sam Rockwell) who portrays an overly helpful and overly insane pal to Hans (Christopher Walken) who makes his living as a dognapper. The problem is he’s just “napped” the Shitzu of Charlie (Woody Harrleson) who plays a gangster with a weakness for his furry friend, that is when he’s not out shooting victims and slitting throats.
The film feels like The Hangover channeling Reservoir Dogs channeling The Player as Farrell opens the movie
with “writers block”- stuck in a movie about the movie he’ll eventually write. Except this movie has more energy and a lot more comic darkness. You’ll wonder why Farrell’s screenwriter character would ever hang around with these two lunatics, but one would suppose he’s living the movie he’ll come to scribe, and let’s face it, real life writers often engage lunatics for material. The highlight is Christopher Walken’s performance, as clearly this role was written for him.
That said, it’s oddly Rockwell’s movie as he gets deeper into his psychopathic behavior (he’s a psychopath within a psychopath) and this is amusing for the audience to sink into. Rockwell is an actor who should have received far more recognition in Hollywood from the moment he was Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
The funniest moment come when one of the Psychopaths says “What a psychopath!” about another guy. Three
and a half tiaras PS no animals were harmed in the making of this movie. Only humans.