The Vietnam War and 'Seven Psychopaths'

The strange 2012 film, Seven Psychopaths , has recently been released on video. The high concept of this hyper-violent very dark comedy is that a movie screenwriter, played by the magnetic Irish actor Colin Farrell (who starred in the 2000 Vietnam War-themed Tigerland ), writing a screenplay called Seven Psychopaths  begins running into a septet of crazed people in what passes for real life.

Two of them are a minor-league dog-napping duo played by Sam Rockwell and the always  strange Christopher Walken. Another is a demented dog owner played by Woody Harrelson, who makes an excellent violent psychopath.

It surprised me to learn that another of the mad seven in the movie—which was written, produced, and directed by Martin McDonagh—is a former Viet Cong fighter in exile in the U.S. (played quite well by Long Nguyen) bent on avenging the death of his family at My Lai.

It won’t spoil anything to say that that part of the film also includes a very realistic flashback to a 1963 self-immolation by a South Vietnamese monk to protest the oppressive regime of Ngo Dinh Diem.

You can watch that gory scene (which also gives away a good part of the ending) on You Tube .




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