The Magnificent Seven
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Written by: Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto - Based on the screenplay by Akira Kurosawa & Shinobu Hashimoto & Hideo Oguni
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Joss, Cam Gigandet, Mark Ashworth
Action/Western - 132 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Sep 2016
Written by: Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto - Based on the screenplay by Akira Kurosawa & Shinobu Hashimoto & Hideo Oguni
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Joss, Cam Gigandet, Mark Ashworth
Action/Western - 132 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Sep 2016
I tend to roll my eyes at remakes and say something about the state of originality and fresh ideas in Hollywood, but Antoine Fuqua and The Magnificent Seven attempt to pull off a bold and in-your-face stunt with a ‘what are you going to do about it?’ attitude. Here comes a remake of a remake. New westerns still trickle out including Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and this year’s brilliant Hell or High Water so we know everything that can be told about the old frontier has not already been done. The Magnificent Seven does not break any new ground here considering other recent western remakes, specifically the Coen brothers' True Grit, set the standard. Moving past the inherent problems with tackling material already produced and part of film lore, Fuqua’s Seven is a contemporary take on an old-fashioned genre. The heroes are darker, the villains are meaner, the dialogue is snappier, and The Magnificent Seven is an engaging, if predictable, time at the movies. It fails to reach the level of recent theatrical westerns, but compared to something like Adam Sandler’s The Ridiculous Six, it’s a damn masterpiece.
A screen title tells us we’re in 1879 and an upset pioneer woman defending her homestead in the backwater of Rose Creek yells, “This is our land!” to the local robber baron who wants to steal the town and plunder it for gold. You think the Native Americans the woman stole the land from yelled the same thing? Fuqua and screenwriters Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto sidestep that thorny past and focus on the evil Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard, Black Mass); an amoral sociopath who gets away with murder because the sheriff is on the payroll. Bogue sweats a lot and squints through sleepy eyes as if he has an opium problem or his body, used to temperate eastern temperatures, has yet acclimate to harsher western brushfires.
A screen title tells us we’re in 1879 and an upset pioneer woman defending her homestead in the backwater of Rose Creek yells, “This is our land!” to the local robber baron who wants to steal the town and plunder it for gold. You think the Native Americans the woman stole the land from yelled the same thing? Fuqua and screenwriters Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto sidestep that thorny past and focus on the evil Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard, Black Mass); an amoral sociopath who gets away with murder because the sheriff is on the payroll. Bogue sweats a lot and squints through sleepy eyes as if he has an opium problem or his body, used to temperate eastern temperatures, has yet acclimate to harsher western brushfires.
Who can save these poor townsfolk with nowhere to run? Slowly riding over the horizon in long shot is not a scruffy-looking, cigar-chomping Clint Eastwood, it’s the last person you would expect to see in the Old West. Denzel Washington (The Equalizer) as Sam Chisholm is a black man on a black horse wearing all black riding calmly and confidently through towns collecting bounties on wanted criminals; very Samuel L. Jackson like in The Hateful Eight. Sam has a backstory and it compels him to fight, for a fee, on the side of the righteous against the tyranny of evil men. Quickly recruiting an ad hoc posse of gunslingers, gamblers, and mountain men, Chisholm and company ride into Rose Creek to clean up this town.
At first glance, these magnificent seven are the most forward thinking, socially progressive men of their time. A Comanche teams up with a famous Indian killer. A former Confederate sniper leans on his Chinese friend, and the grandson of an Alamo victim makes nice with a Mexican whose grandfather took part in the massacre. The diversity is front and center and frequently called attention to. John Sturges’s 1960 version of these town saviors started the trend with Yul Brynner in the lead role and Fuqua leaves in one of his most famous lines, “Been offered a lot for my worth, but never everything.” Yul said it better.
Playing Steve McQueen is Chris Pratt (Jurassic World) as Josh Faraday, an alcoholic Irishman who uses playing cards as metaphors for life and hops on board because he doesn’t have much else to do at the time, just like McQueen. Ethan Hawke (Boyhood) is Goodnight Robicheaux whose demons are not only chasing him, they caught up and invaded his sharpshooting soul. Byung-hun Lee (Terminator Genisys) as Robicheaux’s sidekick Billy Rocks is the true man without a past. Wherever he learned his skills with knives and cutlery, he ain’t telling, but nobody is asking either. The audience gets bits and pieces of Sam Chisholm’s backstory and we learn why Robicheaux is a mental junk drawer, but everybody else is only here in the present with no third dimension. Vincent D’Onofirio (Run All Night) as grizzly bear man Jack Horne chose an off kilter voice to set himself apart and Martin Sensmeier as the Comanche named Red Harvest is a bow and arrow marksman whose only reason for joining up is his tribal elders said he was destined to do something different.
Each man of the seven has his own remarkable skill with weaponry that aid the team in annihilating reams of men severely outnumbering our little rascals. Denzel exudes extreme confidence and purpose as he stares down gangsters in the middle of the dusty road ready for the quick draw. And it not’s just men. Pioneer women had to be strong to survive out there and Haley Bennett as Emma Cullen, the town spokeswoman, fundraiser, and life coach can shoot rifles with the best of them. The plot divides itself into three pieces of pie: the long introduction scenes creating the team, preparing for the epic battle to come, and the extended slaughter to save a town which by the end is not much a town after an arsenal of lead bulldozes through it. The middle preparation portion reminded me of The Three Amigos with Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short encouraging the villagers of Santa Poco to use their homegrown gifts to defend themselves.
Director of Photography Mauro Fiore, an Oscar winner for Avatar, has some fun employing tried and true western techniques with the swooping, gargantuan panoramic shots, the up close pre-duel twitchy finger shots, and delivers a knock out scene soaring among an army of evil men descending upon poor Rose Creek. The score was composed by James Horner and Simon Franglen; Franglen who took over after Horner sadly passed away last year making this his last film. I heard some trumpet flares and immediately knew I had heard them before; they are from Willow! I was seven or eight when Willow came out and saw it thirteen and a half thousand times in the theater; I would know those sounds anywhere. Either Horner plagiarized himself or Franglen threw them in as an homage. I do not believe the world needs another version of a movie which has already been made twice, once with Japanese samurai and once with the leading men of Hollywood 1960. The PG-13 gunfights could excite a new generation and introduce them to an antiquated genre, but hopefully audiences will discover deeper westerns just beyond the reach of this popcorn magnet.
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