Well, this was unexpected. Sort of.

Like Adventureland, this is a thoughtful, clever comedy that fell victim to really shitty marketing. Right down to the core point: the seven psychopaths enumerated in this fucking trailer are not the seven psychopaths in the film. Not even close. In fact, two of those characters have about eight lines between them.

I knew this was a self-aware film before I stepped into the cinema, but I didn’t quite realise the extent. This is a film about making films, about narrative stereotypes, and most of all about plots that shrug off mass murder as a narrative device. There’s this crucial point about halfway through, where Colin Farrell’s screenwriter essentially lays out the plot of a film that he’s currently living through. It’s clever stuff.

Although it’s a different message, it has a similar feel to In Bruges. Colin Farrell seems genuinely haunted by the end, and with good reason. This is the sort of comedy that leaves you feeling hollow, but having learned something.

Seriously, though, the Film4 marketing department need to stop being so fucking stupid. “One Shih Tzu… SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS” is the most idiotic fucking tagline they could have come up with, and they ran with it (presumably) all the way to the bank.