Seven (Se7en)

Variety Staff(not credited)

This weirdly off-kilter suspenser goes well beyond the usual police procedural or killer-on-a-rampage yarn due to a fine script, striking craftsmanship and a masterful performance by Morgan Freeman.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

It's intriguing, appalling, savvy, nasty, grossly unsettling -- you may not like what you see, but you'll definitely be affected by the sight.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A dark, grisly, horrifying and intelligent thriller.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

One can already tell that this film is on to something special during the opening credits.

Film.com Andy Spletzer

An imaginative and disturbing work; well worth a look.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A very nasty piece of work, indeed.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Placing style above coherence, Seven glosses over plot points and shows a weakness for cheap, lurid effects.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

While Seven lacks the cleverness of the superior "Usual Suspects," it's strong enough to hold its own against most other thrillers.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

This homicide thriller has a tantalizingly morbid atmosphere of unease.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A decidedly medieval enterprise, darker in text and tone than a Gothic cathedral by the light of the moon.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's not the identity of the killer that gives Seven its kick -- it's the way Fincher raises mystery to the level of moral provocation.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Noticeable skill has gone into the making of Seven, but it's hard to take much pleasure in that.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A gruesome detective-thriller about a serial killer who ices egregious offenders of the seven deadly sins, portends an unpalatable combination of formulaic writing and unmitigated nastiness.

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

An accomplished thriller that's nasty, brutish and relatively short.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a misfire--but a fascinating, magnetic misfire, a film full of first-rate talents forced into absurdity, struggling to bring believability to nonsense. [22 September 1995, Friday, p. C]

USA Today Mike Clark

Director David Fincher shovels on more gloom than even the serial killer genre can sustain in the murkily moody, but self-defeating, Seven.

Film.com Sean Means

Watching Seven is like cracking open a safe, only to find it crawling with eels

Time Richard Schickel

It is very tiresome peering through the gloom trying to catch a glimpse of something interesting, then having to avert one's eyes when it turns out to be just another brutally tormented body.

Newsweek David Ansen

A style so chic, studied and murky it resembles a cross between a Nike commercial and a bad Polish art film.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

While the premise is intriguing, the movie is gluey, bumbling and singularly un-thrilling.

Film.com John Hartl

This could be the year's most pretentious Hollywood film.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Not even bags of body parts, a bitten-off tongue or a man forced to cut off a pound of his own flesh keep it from being dull. [22 September 1995, p. C18]