By Jason Yon
Elm Staff Writer
The second rebranding of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” into a western, Antoine Fuqua’s “Magnificent Seven” attempts to bring back a classic tale of bravery and righteousness. Fuqua is best known for directing “Training Day,” a crime drama starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, both of whom make and star in “Magnificent Seven.” Other big names that make an appearance in the movie are Chris Pratt and Vincent D’Onofrio. Even with a cast as packed with names like these, “Magnificent Seven” couldn’t begin to compare the cast of the original with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, and Charles Bronson. Denzel and Pratt can hold their own, but they pale in comparison to the originals.
“Magnificent Seven,” while deviating slightly from the original plot, sticks to the idea of seven gunfighters assisting a town in need. In this version, a corrupt businessman, Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), terrorizes a small town in order to gain more land for his mining company. His cronies burn the town church and shoot many of the men in the town, including Emma Cullen’s (Haley Bennett) husband. At this point, she reaches out to hired gun Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington). She gives him her life savings and convinces him to help by appealing to his morals. Chisolm then goes around and recruits more gunfighters to aid him against the Bogue. First on board is the drunk gambler, Josh Faraday, played by Chris Pratt. Together, Chisolm and Faraday gather the other five gunfighters. Certainly, they make a motley crew of seven, composed of a black bounty hunter, a drunk gambler, a Cajun confederate, an Asian knife thrower, a native American outcast, a Mexican outlaw, and a surly mountain man.
Despite the colorful cast of characters, “Magnificent Seven” turns out to be rather bland. This movie is not exempt from the stereotype that remakes are never able to live up to their predecessors. It could have fared far better had it not been a callback to a classic Western film. It would still be recognizable from the plot similarities, but at least it wouldn’t have been an obvious attempt to make more money off of a nostalgic franchise. On top of this, the writing was rather predictable and the viewer was forced to suspend their disbelief on many occasions as plot pieces fell into place in unbelievably convenient manners. In addition to this, the movie also seemed to borrow heavily from another recent Western movie, “Django Unchained.” In one scene, Chisolm is required to explain his position as a legal bounty hunter to townsfolk in a manner identical to Christoph Waltz’s monologue as Dr. King Shultz. In another scene, Chisolm rides into a town and people react similarly to seeing Django on a horse. There could be some amount of racial commentary in “Magnificent Seven,” but it was somehow forgotten after that scene. It seems pointless to have such a diverse cast and not make any obvious remarks about it.
Despite all of the things that went wrong in “Magnificent Seven,” there were a few things worth seeing in it, utmost being the gunplay. It is always fun to watch standoffs in the middle of a vacant street and the ostentatious twirling of nickel plated revolvers. The movie had two major fights in it, the second of which almost made up for the rest of movie’s lacking portions. Although they don’t make the best cowboys, the performances of Washington and Pratt were also entertaining. Washington’s cool calmness and Pratt’s comedic drunkenness played off of each other nicely. Unfortunately, these are the only positives present in the movie.
As a remake of the soaring classic from 1960, “Magnificent Seven” falls short in a spectacular fashion. While not a complete flop of a movie, it is certainly nothing special. Watching it only reminds the experienced viewer of the original film and all of the aspects that it did better. A further slap to the face was the inclusion of the original theme song in the credits; simply another reminder of what came before. For anyone who hasn’t seen the original, this version isn’t as bad, but still not exactly worth seeing in theaters. It will serve as quick and cheap entertainment when its copies are released, but nothing more.
Score: C-