The Magnificent Seven

Year: 2016
Genre: Western
Directed: Antoine Fuqua
Stars: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-Hun Lee, Mauel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer
Production: MGM

As far as remakes go, The Magnificent Seven (1960) is on the cusp of being a no-no as far as lightning-in-a-bottle, generational classics are concerned. While not as well beloved as The Searchers (1956) or The Dollars Trilogy (1964-1966), the original Seven’s star-studded and agreeable do-it-up glitz was enough to be remembered fondly without people screaming bloody murder like some other remakes made in the recent past. Plus, when it comes down to it, the same basic story has been remade already; the best version of which is a tossup between Seven Samurai (1954) and A Bug’s Life (1998) depending on how willing you are to tolerate my “nineties kid” biases.

Not all is well in the dusty town of Rose Creek. A villainous robber baron by the name of Bart Bogue (Sarsgaard) has taken over and strong-arms the townsfolk to give up their land, or else. Emma Cullen (Bennett), our young self-adjudicated angel of vengeance puts it upon herself to hire a few gunslingers to scare off Bogue’s men and restore the town to its rightful owners (no not the Comanche, don’t be silly). Seven men answer the call, led by Chisolm (Washington) a bounty hunter with a soft spot for maidens in distress.

Just like the original, this shoot’em up western is perched atop the broad shoulders of its all-star cast who all pull their weight and differentiate themselves among the others. Ethan Hawke’s sharpshooter is given a taut but emotionally satisfying arc while Denzel Washington pulls off the same shtick he’s known for i.e. being in charge and having the skills to back it up. Manuel Garia-Rulfo and Vincent D’Onofrio are naturally suited for this kind of over-the-top rabble-rousing, though they remain sorely underwritten. As diversity picks, Byung-hun Lee and Martin Sensmeier make a big splash playing a nebulously East Asian Jet Li impersonator and a stoic Comanche added to the team, just because.

Finally there's Chris Pratt's Josh Faraday whose hard-drinking gambler proves problematic. Not because of Pratt himself, the man has enough charisma to start a cult and enough goodwill behind him to be in a Uwe Boll film and not tarnish his star. No, it's because director Antoine Fuqua and writers Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto feel the need to balance, counter and otherwise parity Farday's likable and unlikable traits like they were filling out a spreadsheet. It's as if they didn't want to alienate Starlord fans so they took no risks with the character, turning him into a bizzaro analogue of Brad Dexter's Lucky from the original. Yet the original story arc was one of redemption; a bad man made selfless not a selfless man hiding virtue under smirks, wisecracks and flasks of whiskey.

Yet given the near century of golden-age wild west exposure in film, it's easy to see someone like Faraday existing among the rogue gallery of devils with hearts of gold. And with a little background on the era, it's even easy to see a team of strays being cobbled together to resemble something of a rainbow coalition. Yet it's hard to let the film slide on padding over the obvious tension of having, say, a Comanche on a team that includes a man who once made a living scalping Native Americans or having a Mexican bandit join because a warrant officer cuts a poorly detailed deal with him. Lest we even bring up the elephant in the room concerning Denzel?

Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for there to be a team of protectors consisting of a Confederate sharpshooter, a Comanche warrior, an Asian assassin, a Mexican bandit, a burly mountain man, a gambler and a black leader. I'm just saying it's impossible for no one to say anything about it. The fact that this is the case feels less like contemporary messaging or outright revisionism and more a movie straining to keep a PG-13 rating. The irony of course is this movie has enough cold-blooded murder to fill a small town graveyard but God forbid our characters sound like real cowboys.

The Magnificent Seven is a massively entertaining, easily digestible modern western that does everything it can to make its stars look good to the detriment of making the characters larger than life. It has no compunctions as to what it is and even while being a stickler for period accuracy, I can admire its brassiness.

Final Grade: C