Review: "The Magnificent Seven"
Thursday, September 22, 2016 at 10:00PM by Chris Feil
Drawing on the original iterations of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and the 1960 American remake by John Sturges, Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven arrives as another attempt to reanimate the American western.
Denzel Washington leads this bursting cast as Chisolm, corralling a ragtag mini-militia to help protect a small town from a violent and overbearing tycoon (Peter Sarsgaard). There are familiar faces (Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio) and emerging talents (Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier) rounding out the Magnificent bunch with more shared attention to each player than you might be anticipating...
However, the film itself is very much one you might expect from a copy of a copy. The film is funneled through labor attempts to contemporize the genre and reach for iconography, but just tastes like someone has watered down the whiskey. These diminishing returns also result in one of Fuqua's least distinctive and thrilling films.
For a film that features diversity both in front of and behind the camera, it's a shame that it results in frequent casual and outright racism. Garcia-Rulfo's Mexican bandit is introduced into the film on a rape joke and Sensmeier's Native American is treated almost exclusively with noble heathen cliches. The cheap laughs that the film frequently mines fall flat thanks to this hypocrisy, all but flatlining its labors to entertain.
Seven relies on the plentiful chemistry of the cast for most of its thrills as it builds up to its (very Home, Home Alone on The Range) final showdown. While the film avoids feeling laboriously long despite it's 2+ hours, its momentum comes in fits and stutters making for a finale that doesn't satisfy like it could. The incoherence to the action scenes also don't help, making for some moments closer to Transformers than to the Sturges take. There is a shocking amount of brutality in the PG-13 film: axe hackings, bullets to the head, a man trampled to death by a horse, all rendered bloodlessly but still stomach turning.
What keeps the film at least engaging throughout, if not softening its off-putting side, is a top to bottom charming cast working overtime to keep Seven less than grotesque. As the film gets lethargic and plotty, standouts like D'Onofrio, Hawke, and Lee (warning: annoying/ellusive gay subtext alert) bring texture to otherwise archetypal moments. Washington is as unwaveringly charismatic as ever (even if the film is surprisingly disinterested in him) and Sarsgaard is maybe having the most fun, returning again to villain territory. The ensemble's weak point is perhaps Chris Pratt, whose quippy mannerisms are a bit strained against a more laid back bunch.
Sometimes alive and occasionally offensive, The Magnificent Seven could be a fleeting entertainment for the masses, but is likely too familiar to inspire much passion.
Grade: C-
MVP: Vincent D'Onofrio is the crowd pleaser, but Byung-hun Lee should be the superstar of the future.
Oscar Chances: If it makes substantial money to keep it in the conversation, Production Design and Costume Design wouldn't be out of the question.
Reader Comments (4)
I agree with Chris Pratt being the weak link of the bunch - totally unfunny and wasn't believable as a cowboy, like he was playing dress-up.
Ever since Jurassic park 300 I have all but lost faith in Chris Pratt: movie star. Such a shame as he never failed to mine for gold on parks and rec. He comes off like a self-conscious parody of a movie star in his action performances--which would be great if it was a comedy/scary movie-style riff, but his delivery is earnest. I was mildly interested in this, mostly because of Sarsgaard and the diversity on display, but sad to hear that, much like Suicide Squad, they waste having black, Latino, East Asian and Native American actors playing nothing parts... :/
Home Alone on The Range? So the mechanics of the climax are very much a follow-up to Fuqua's version of The Equalizer? Hmm.
I was mildly interested in this, mostly because of Sarsgaard and the diversity on display, but sad to hear that, much like Suicide Squad, they waste having black, Latino, East Asian and Native American actors playing nothing parts