The film revolves around the writer Marty, who inadvertently becomes involved in the criminal underworld in Los Angeles. Things seem to be especially bad after his curious friends kidnapped Xie Tzu. At those moments, Marty uses events to write a new scenario.
I'm not sure it all hangs together in the end, but McDonagh's grasping at something interesting.
Bill Newcott
AARP Movies for Grownups
June 10, 2016
McDonagh might have had a minor classic in the tradition of Quentin Tarantino...But by the time the characters head to the desert to pitch a tent and contemplate new screenplay concepts, we've nearly forgotten what the movie is supposed to be about.
Yes, it's a lot to keep track of, but writer-director Martin McDonagh does so with deft humor as the film hurls toward a desert climax, foreshadowed in one of Billy and Marty's exchanges.
Kristian M. Lin
Fort Worth Weekly
February 26, 2016
Seven Psychopaths may not add up to a whole lot, but McDonagh makes these small-time strivers and hoods fun to be around for a couple of hours.
All this narrative nesting and genre-skipping sounds very cerebral on the page, but in practice, Seven Psychopaths is as pleasurably kinetic as can be, full of double-crosses and gunplay and sun-kissed SoCal locations.
Each time it appears that McDonagh, who also directed, has written himself into a cul de sac, he off-roads the movie (sometimes literally) into fresh territory.
