“Gruesome Twisted Fun”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Seven Psychopaths is a very funny, very bloody, and very violent comedy that keeps you laughing, but you almost feel guilty about doing so.

It begins with a surprising double murder that seems to be out of place with the rest of the movie until an explanation later on identifies the killer as the first of the psychopaths.

Colin Farrell plays Marty, who is living in Los Angeles and writing a screenplay, but all he has so far is the title, Seven Psychopaths.

Sam Rockwell plays Billy, Marty’s best friend who is also a struggling actor, but he has a profitable enterprise which gets him into serious trouble.

Billy steals dogs from people, and then another friend named Hans, played by Christopher Walken, returns the dog to its owner and modestly accepts a reward for the dog’s return.

Meanwhile, Marty gets drunk at a party, his girlfriend throws him out of the house, and he wakes up the next morning in Billy’s house. And yet when Billy accuses Marty of having a drinking problem, Marty says, “I don’t have a drinking problem. I just like drinking.”

Then Billy helps Marty with his screenplay by thinking up additional psychopaths, and we see scenes of the film as Marty narrates it.

However, when Billy makes the mistake of stealing a shih-tzu named Bonny, all hell breaks loose for everyone involved and some who aren’t involved.

You see, Bonny belongs to a mob boss named Charlie, played by Woody Harrelson, and Charlie will do anything to get Bonny back.

Anything.

As if that weren’t enough of a problem, Billy puts an ad in the local newspaper asking for psychopaths to answer the ad, so that they can help Marty and him with the screenplay.

A man named Zachariah, played by Tom Waits, shows up holding a rabbit, and he tells his gruesome story, which we also see.

Meanwhile, Charlie and his henchmen start closing in on Billy, and so Billy, Marty, Hans, and Bonny take off to the desert, where they can all work on the screenplay and where Billy thinks that the desert is the perfect place for a final shootout.

Now, don’t walk out of the theater when the closing credits start, because the movie isn’t over, and there are additional laughs coming.

Seven Psychopaths is gruesome, twisted fun.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”