The 2008 comic caper “In Bruges” is probably the best movie you never saw. The under-the-radar film made just $7.8 million stateside, and was so buried, it likely opened on a single screen in the actual Bruges.
Now, writer-director Martin McDonagh is back with his second movie, Friday’s “Seven Psychopaths,” and he’s hoping his latest will amount to more than a cult hit. “Seven Psychopaths” is about two loopy criminals who kidnap dogs and return them to their owners to collect rewards. When they pilfer an LA crime lord’s beloved pooch, the crooks are forced to run for their lives.
The zingy dialogue, darkly comic tone and ensemble cast — which includes Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Tom Waits — recalls films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” McDonagh says his model was more “Mean Streets,” the 1973 Martin Scorsese movie with Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.
Either way, what all those movies also share is an eclectic roster of great actors. McDonagh dishes on four of his psychopaths — and Farrell, who plays a mostly sane screenwriter caught up in the action.
* Psychopath No. 1: Christopher Walken
McDonagh, also a Tony award-winning playwright, worked with Walken on 2010’s Broadway play “A Behanding in Spokane.” “Chris comes up with a lot of crazy s – – t,” McDonagh says. “There’s a line in the film where [his character] says, ‘I think I would have made a great pope. I would have been very lenient.’ That was actually something Chris said about himself during lunch break during the play.”
* Psychopath No. 2: Tom Waits
Waits plays a creepy stranger with a pet rabbit who gives his life story to Farrell’s character to use in a screenplay. McDonagh has been friends with the grizzled singer-actor for a few years. “I e-mailed him and told him it’s about a guy with a rabbit who has a history of murder, and he came back the next day and said, ‘ I get to carry a rabbit? I’m in!’ And that was it.” Waits, working Method, asked the costume designer for things to put in his character’s pocket, including matches, mints and lip balm, even though the items would never be seen on-camera.
* Psychopath No. 3: Woody Harrelson
To play the dog-loving crime boss, Harrelson asked if his character could have a neck tattoo. He originally wanted a picture of his mom, but McDonagh nixed the idea, ultimately settling on a scorpion.
* Psychopath No. 4: Sam Rockwell
Playing the dognapping best friend to Farrell’s character, Rockwell’s big moment comes when he spins a manic, drug-fueled yarn around a campfire involving a ridiculous shoot-out in a cemetery. The scene had audiences cheering at a recent screening. “I went round to Sam’s place to rehearse that a few weeks before shooting started, and he had it memorized,” McDonagh says. “It’s like a 10-minute monologue really. I was in hysterics just watching him dance around his kitchen coming up with s – – t.”
And then there’s the matter of the fuzzy hat with bear ears that his character wears. “Myself and Colin and Sam drove out to Joshua Tree Park a few months before shooting to talk over the script and be out in nature,” McDonagh recalls. “On the way out, Colin stopped into a convenience store, bought a bunch of groceries and picked up that hat for Sam. I was watching them as they were rehearsing, and Sam had this silly hat on and it seemed perfect for the character, so it made it into the film.”
* Non-psychopath No. 1: Colin Farrell
McDonagh says Farrell didn’t feel left out not playing a psychopath.
“I guess we kind of covered that ground in ‘In Bruges,’ ” he says. “He was kind of an outrageous character in that, so it would be kind of like repeating the trick in this.”