DVD Review: ‘Seven Psychopaths’ falls short on extras

For whatever reason, Martin McDonagh’s “Seven Psychopaths” — one of the best films of last year — didn’t find its audience. The poster was both blah and misleading, and it probably didn’t help that this gun-rich, blood-soaked comedy came out less than three months after the Aurora massacre.

Colin Farrell is the (presumably autobiographical) screenwriter, unable to finish his current script, “Seven Psychopaths.” His dopey best friend (Sam Rockwell) is a dognapper, in league with a more sympathetic older man (Christopher Walken, in a wonderful performance). They steal a shih tzu, whose owner happens to be one of L.A.’s biggest mob bosses. Mayhem and laughter ensue.

The film could be crudely described as “Pulp Fiction Meets Adaptation.” If it’s not quite as great as McDonagh’s freshman feature, “In Bruges,” it comes close.

The new home video release has a good transfer, but for a new release it has shockingly few extras — six alleged “featurettes” that would be better called “short-ettes.” There’s nothing feature-ish about them. They run between 1:07 and 2:33 in length, for a grand total of 10 minutes and 14 seconds.

Sad to say, they’re also not that good. Maybe Sony is holding stuff back for a Grand Deluxe Edition some time down the road, but it seems unlikely they’d bother, given the movie’s disappointing box-office results.

“Seven Psychopaths” (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray, $35.99; DVD, $30.99)

--

Note: In last week’s DVD review of the 1953 version of “Titanic,” director Jean Negulesco’s name was misspelled. As reader Carole Glines Laux pointed out to us, it turns out that while he was born “Negulescu” (the original Romanian spelling, as we had it), the filmmaker used “Negulesco” throughout his Hollywood career

--

ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).