Who’s up for some torture with a twist? Fans of films like Hostel, Saw, and Grotesque should find something to enjoy in the new French/Canadian thriller, 7 Days. But unlike those films that put innocent people through the emotional and physical wringers, this flick sets its sights on a much guiltier party. It’s basically the first thirty minutes of Law Abiding Citizen stretched out to feature length. And that can’t be a bad thing, right?
7 Days finds a happy family torn apart by an act of pure evil. A man lives a contented life with his wife and daughter until the day the young girl goes missing on the way home from school. She’s found raped and murdered a short while later, and the man responsible is caught by the police. Not so fast says the grieving father who kidnaps his daughter’s killer and sets out to spend a full week making the man pay for his crime. The father understandably holds little back and the violence and torture he inflicts appears to be both graphic and incredibly painful. So who’s the bad guy here, and who do you root root for in a situation like this?
Check out the trailer and the synopsis after the jump…
Trailer:
Looks pretty brutal and viscerally effective with the violence and images of the dead girl in your face. The twist of the torture victim being a bad guy as opposed to a college girl or some other sexualized innocent is a refreshing change of pace, and I’m curious to see how it plays out. Will the audience find themselves eventually rooting for the child-killer? Is he even definitely the daughter’s murderer?
The official synopsis info is below.
Directed by Daniel Grou, aka Podz, and adapted for the screen by author Patrick Senécal from his best-selling novel, ‘Les sept jours du talion’, 7 Days is an intense and disturbing French Canadian thriller in the tradition of the ‘Saw’ movies, but if they had been directed by Michael Haneke or Lars von Trier.
Middle-aged surgeon Bruno Hamel (Claude Legault), his wife Sylvie (Fanny Mallette) and their eight-year-old daughter Jasmine (Rose-Marie Coallier) are living a happy but fairly uneventful life in the quiet suburban town of Drummondville. That all changes one beautiful autumn afternoon when Jasmine fails to return home from school and is later found to have been raped and murdered by a local man, Anthony Lemaire (Martin Dubreuil). The loss of their daughter has a profound effect on Bruno and Sylvie, driving a wedge between them and leaving both, particularly Bruno, drowning in a whirlpool of despair.
When the killer-rapist is eventually arrested and scheduled to appear in court charged with the multiple murders of young female victims, Bruno’s emotions turn from guilt and grief to anger and a desire for revenge inspiring him to hatch a detailed plot to kidnap Lemaire, take him to a secret location and make him pay for his crimes. Everything goes according to plan and with the monster now in his custody Bruno contacts the police and reveals his terrifying intentions: he will torture Lemaire for seven days before executing him and then turning himself in…
A dark exploration of the mind of a man driven to the edge of sanity by his own grief, this bold thriller with graphic scenes of violence that push the scenario into the realms of pure horror premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2010 to wide acclaim. Starring Claude Legault as the broken father and husband seeking the ultimate revenge and Martin Dubreuil as the killer-turned-victim, 7 Days co-stars Fanny Mallette and award winning, veteran Canadian actor Rémy Girard.”
7 Days hits DVD in the UK on August 23rd from E1 Entertainment.
