Crime Film Analysis

The Propriety and Amalgamation of an Effective Crime Film

Crime is a genre that often times follows an often times intelligent, malicious criminal. Sometimes it follows the criminal chronologically and sometimes is follows the criminal through their victims. But simply following this generic guideline does not define a crime movie, there are defining factors that make a crime movie. In order for a crime movie to be effective it must have a criminal with a motive. A criminal and his motive are important for a criminal movie to have because it a lot of times serves as the basis for the movie to build on. The next important criteria is a setting, a proper setting enables the movie to invoke a subliminal feeling before the movie incorporates
Film critic Todd McCarthy speaks of the use of setting in seven, saying: “The unidentified city in which the grisly yarn unravels is subject to heavy rain through the early days of the inquiry, which provides the first element in Fincher’s channeling of images. As if to provide the viewer with partial blinders to severely control what one will see, the director, his virtuoso French cinematographer, Darius Khondji (“Delicatessen,” “Before the Rain”), and production designer Arthur Max (a former Fillmore East and rock concert lighting designer) have sculpted a dark, murky world, parts of which are illuminated only by flash light and much of the rest of which is suffused in a pea-soup green that defies penetration.”. To elaborate his point he begins by saying “The unidentified city”. This is an important factor of the movie as normally in crime movies they give specific towns. This also coincides with the theme of ambiguity throughout the movie. Se7en never shows John Doe actually commit murder as well as waiting until late in the movie to reveal his identity. Another important aspect of Todd McCarthy’s observation in regards to the setting in seven is the heavy rain present throughout. The movie contains a dark, gloomy atmosphere doused in heavy rain at almost all times. The use of gloom and rain gives foresight and an extra layer to the sadistic nature of John Doe. It also adds contrast at the end of the movie, in the final scene of the movie where the final two sins are fulfilled the rain was no longer present which perhaps pertains to John Doe’s seemingly untouchable