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| comingsoon.net |
There’s nothing quite as American as the Western. Cowboys, Indians, bandits, shootouts, they all scream badass and quintessential American lore, but you don’t see very many of them anymore. In the post-Unforgiven era, Westerns tend to either be revisionist (meaning they deconstruct the genre) or updated to the modern day (Hell or High Water is a good example). However, Sony’s new film The Magnificent Seven seems poised to take us back to those good old days with a more action-oriented take on a very familiar story. Can this remake of a classic Western (itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Seven Samurai) recapture that Western magic? Let’s find out.
A few years after the Civil War, the citizens of a tiny town called Rose Creek find themselves targeted by evil industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who wants the town and its nearby gold mine for himself. After her husband is killed by Bogue, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) sets out to recruit some help, which comes in the form of seven gunslingers: bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), mountain man Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), knife expert Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee) and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). As Bogue’s forces prepare to descend on the town, the seven have to prepare the townsfolk for an epic final showdown that will decide the future of Rose Creek.
Director Antoine Fuqua has made no secret about his love for Westerns, and he shows it big time here. This film is absolutely a classic Western, from the sweeping camera shots of Midwestern vistas (except they’re actual mountains and plains, not matte paintings) to the almost superhuman heroes to a score (partially composed by the late great James Horner) that reminds the audience of those old films. The result is a familiar but insanely enjoyable action film, with the seven battling disposable villains that can’t hit anything until the plot demands it, and I can’t tell you in words how much of a good time I had watching this film. I’ve complained before about remakes and how Hollywood has become too reliant on them, but in this case I feel like I need to give this a pass because we really are getting that Western that we haven’t seen basically since the original Magnificent Seven came out. It doesn’t just copy the trends of every single modern day film like, say, Ghostbusters.
One of the biggest pluses here is the script, co-written by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. While there are some issues, the script is engaging enough to keep us invested and has a surprising amount of good humor. Most of the seven have their comedic moments, and the actors (who all do a really good job) nail them completely. There are also some interesting character moments, such as Goodnight suffering from PTSD from serving in the Civil War, and many of them are delivered in more subtle ways. Sam Chisolm’s reaction to hearing Bogue’s name sets up a mystery of why he’d even take this mission, while one of Faraday’s scenes with Emma Cullen basically defines his entire character with a simple line and a well-timed pause. There are some downsides to the script, but let’s just say that the actors, tension and humor help sell it all regardless.
While this is definitely a Western, it is the action sequences that really set this apart. Antoine Fuqua has already shown his action chops with movies like The Equalizer and Olympus Has Fallen, but he manages to infuse the three shootouts in this movie with an energy and excitement that’s missing from most modern action. They’re all shot well (no jump cuts here, thank God), there’s a good mixture of practical effects and stunts with CGI, and each battle only escalates. Denzel’s character has a minor shootout at the beginning, and the seven have their group battle in the middle of the film, while the final third act is the big battle between the citizens and Bogue’s forces. Each battle has its own crowd-pleasing moments and awesome bits of action, and it works because that’s what this film is trying to be. Anybody walking into this movie expecting some real heavy drama, Unforgiven style, is going to be disappointed, because this is first and foremost an action film. And it nails the action better then most movies this year have, in my opinion.
The complaint that I have with this film is with the character work in the script, which leaves a lot to be desired in some areas. Many of the seven are underdeveloped at best, and even those with some development don’t really go anywhere in terms of character arcs or growth. There are also some random things that seem to serve only to create tension for tension's sake, like a rivalry between Faraday and Vasquez (it’s never explained why they don’t like each other) in the first half only to disappear in the second. Other story avenues are completely ignored, like the fact that a known killer of Comanches in Jack Horne is suddenly placed on a team with one of them. The closest thing we get to interaction between Horne and Red Harvest is a little humorous moment near the end, and that’s it. It’s a shame given how much potential these characters had, and given that the film is taking from two films that really did have memorable characters (to be fair, though, they were both at least three hours long), I was hoping that this would carry over in the translation. The villain doesn’t fare much better either, with Bogue barely being in the film at all and Sarsgaard given nothing to do but sneer and sweat the whole time. Given the limited run time, though, I think Fuqua made the right choice, I just like to think there’s an extra thirty minutes where all of these things are addressed.
Look, those who know me know that I’m a huge mark for Westerns. It was a Clint Eastwood Western that inspired me to write, and I study these films almost obsessively to figure out how they were made and how to write movies like them. So I was ready to love this film and despite my disappointment with some of the writing I had a great time watching it. The humor, the actors and the action make this a great blockbuster for the fall season, and it more than makes up for the lackluster summer we had this year. We need to see more movies like this, folks, so go out there and support it!
My Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
The Magnificent Seven is in theaters now.
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