Though I must admit his theater work is a total blind spot for me, I’m a huge fan of what Martin McDonagh does as a writer/director in film. I loved the wildly funny Six Shooter, the violent and subversive short that won McDonagh an Academy Award, and his debut feature, In Bruges, was a darkly comic addition to the hit man movie subgenre that showed he could work skilfully on a larger cinematic canvas. For his new film, Seven Psychopaths, McDonagh seems to be ratcheting up the silliness factor — although I’m sure there’s some very black moments in the movie that were destined never to appear in a (green band) trailer. Psychopaths, which world premieres at Toronto and comes out in November through CBS Films, is about dog kidnapping and almost looks like a parody of those mid-90s crime thrillers with star-studded ensemble casts, such as The Usual Suspects and Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. Here the impressive list of actors lining up to work with McDonagh includes Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Tom Waits, Gabourey Sidibe and Kevin Corrigan.