Martin McDonagh, Sam Rockwell and Colin Farrell in Toronto
His big budget remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall laid a fat egg at the box office this summer, but there’s no doubt that Colin Farrell’s next offering, Seven Psychopaths, written and directed by Oscar/Tony winner Martin McDonagh, will fare better with the critics.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend, and Colin was on hand to help promote the project with McDonagh and co-stars Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken among others.

In the film he plays Martin, an alcoholic Irish screenwriter who eventually teams with Rockwell’s character to write a film, but gets sidetracked by stealing the precious dog of the mob boss played by Harrelson.

It sounds like a typically outlandish McDonagh film, just like In Bruges, which earned Colin a Golden Globe a few years back. The Guardian in England gave it four stars, and critics in Toronto were also pleased with what they saw.

“The film has a certain kind of chaotic nature to it, but it was really, really easy to shoot,” said Farrell.
McDonagh, born in Britain to Irish parents and author of the Leenane Irish trilogy that made such a splash on Broadway back in the nineties, was his usual deadpan self at the presser for the film. When asked if he researched real life psychos for his movie he replied, “Not really, other than my mother.”

The film is due for U.S. release in the next few weeks, and will bow in Ireland in December.