The Seven Deadly Sins

Det. David Mills: We aren't just going to pick up two more bodies, are we?

John Doe: That wouldn't be shocking enough. Wanting people to listen, you just can't tap them on the shoulder any more. Hit them with a sledgehammaer and you'll have their strict attention.

[A little later]

Mills: You only killed a bunch of innocent people so you could get your rocks off. That's all.

Doe: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? Look at the people I killed. An obese man, a disgusting man who could barely stand up... who if you saw him on the street you'd point so your friends could mock him along with you. Who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him I picked the lawyer. And, you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This was a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath he could muster... to keeping rapists and murderers on the streets. A woman... so ugly on the inside that she couldn't bare to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer... a drug dealing pederast, actually. And, don't forget the disease spreading whore. Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. That's the point. You see a deadly sin on almost every street corner, and in every home, literally. And we tolerate it. Because it's common, it seems trivial, and we tolerate, all day long, morning, noon and night. Not anymore. I'm setting the example, and it's going to be puzzled over and studied and followed, from now on.

The above dialogue is found in New Line Cinema's 1995 feature "Se7en" featuring Morgan Freeman as Detective William Somerset, Brad Pitt as Detective David Mills, Gwyneth Paltrow as his wife Tracy Mills and Kevin Spacey as Johnathan Doe. The most sensible thing I've ever heard a psychopath (fictional) say so far in an attempt to rationalize his grim deeds. I believe that murder in cold blood cannot be justified by any excuse but I found it hard negate what Doe was talking about in that dialogue, and the weird thing is nobody in the movie does so either. However, I can't disagree with the fact that this is one cool movie, even without its almost creative and methodical murders for which it got famous.