2016 Films: #19. The Magnificent Seven

September 27th in St. Charles MO. For those not aware, this film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, is a remake of John Sturges' 1960 classic of the same name, But the film that started it all was Akira Kurosawa's 1954 all-time uber-classic Seven Samurai.

The year is 1879 and the venue is the western mining town of Rose Creek (it could be Arizona, Utah or even Northern California but it was filmed in New Mexico if any of that matters). The populace of ROse Creek are under the thumb of wealthy but evil industrialist Bartholomew Bogue ( Peter Sarsgaard) who burns down the church and kills a few townspeople to make sure the get the fact that he runs the show. One of the townsfolk gunned down was the good looking guy from White Collar and his wife Ellen (Haley Bennett) wants vengeance.

Ellen goes out to recruit some hired guns. The first person she runs into is warrant officer, Sam Chisolm. Chisolm isn't really turned on by the gig but perks up when he hears that Bogue is the lead villain. Here's the crew that makes up the title of the film:

• Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington): The leader and the replica of Yul Brynner from the original.
• Joshua Farraday (Chris Pratt): The goofy, boozing gambler who has impure thoughts for Miss Ellen. He's the Steve McQueen of this version.
• Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke): Confederate veteran, good friend of Chisolm (a black guy by the way) and sharpshooter. Hawke is this version's Robert Vaughn.
• Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee): Robiceaux's confidant, martial arts and knife expert. Lee is the Jame Coburn character.
• Jack Horne (Detective Bobby Goren): Mountain man.He represents Jeremiah Johnson. Who was not a character in the original. His closest match is Brad Dexter. Not really but they're both heavy set big dudes. 
• Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo): A Mexican outlaw that Chisolm just sort of runs into whole trying to recruit another guy. He closest match would be Charles Bronson but Bronson has no equals. 
• Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier): A Comanche who stumbles upon the group when they're camping out. Chisolm tells him that they're going to right some wrongs and kill some white people. Red Harvest is like, "yeah man! I'm in." The closest match here is Horst Buchholz. Much like Horne and Vasquez, its not a match.

The group arrives back at Rose Creek and  dispatch Bogue's henchman with relative ease while Bogue is in Sacramento. Since Bogue is in Sacramento, they have a week to prepare for his assault and they start making preparations. Robicheaux, who's seen too much killing, leaves because he feels this is a no win situation and he just can't kill anymore. When Bogue's forces arrive and attack, they're ambushed and in the ensuing shootout Robicheaux returns only die a gruesome death alongside Billy Rocks when Bogue unveils his gatling gun and sprays the town with bullets. Farraday sacrifices himself in order to take out the gatling gun. Eventually, Chisolm and Bogue square off against each other. It's here where Chisolm reveals that Bogue was responsible for the rape and killing of his sisters and mother back in Nebraska. Chisolm survived the lynching and it's payback time.

The film has had mixed reviews, much like Antoine Fuqua's other films. This was entertaining but not that great. Seven Samurai, was the first film that gave film viewers the plot element of recruiting heroes into a team to complete a mission. Sturges did a much better job in 1960 than Fuqua did here. Maybe it's because we're only supposed to care about Pratt and Robicheaux. To be fair, Fuqua did a nice job of recreating the scene that introduces us to Billy Rocks. It was a nice homage to the Coburn scene. In the 1960 version, there was an emotional attachment to all of the crew. Here it's pretty much just Denzel, Pratt, Hawke and to a lesser degree Lee. The others really just rounded the group out. Red Harvest's only purpose was to battle and kill Bogue's Comanche assassin (I knew there was a Native American in the group and I knew immediately when I saw Bogue's Native American that two we're going to fight. Too obvious). As for Vasquez, the group needed more diversity I guess. In fairness though, the original group was pretty iconic. It's difficult to match that kind of talent from the the 1960 film. 

Ellen Cullen seemed a bit too much like Mattie Ross from True Grit and since she was a ginger, she would have gotten a 3rd degree sunburn. Denzel was his usual brilliant self. Pratt had a difficult job of taking the McQueen role. It was a fine performance and he did the best he could but there isn't anyone who can match McQueen. Hawke's performance is right up there with Denzel. He played the Robert Vaughn character very well. I also liked Lee in the Coburn role. But I had no emotional connection to the rest of the group. None what so ever. That's probably the way the filmmakers wanted it? Take a close look at the poster, see how far in the background Jack Horne and Red Harvest are? You can barely make out Vasquez's face. That is intentional.

There were also a lot of elements from Pale Rider in here as well. Especially the Chisolm/Bogue showdown. Chisolm having survived a lynching is from Hang 'Em High. Speaking of lynching survival, it seemed really convenient that the first person that Ellen runs into is Chisolm. He turns the gig down until she mentions Bogue. If Chisolm was so into revenge, he probably could've tracked Bogue down. It's not like Bogue was keeping a low profile. He was a wealthy industrialist for crying out loud. Since Bogue is a wealthy industrialist, people are going to miss him when he's dead. Now Chisolm has a mark on his head. I know it's 1879 and vigilante justice wasn't as frowned upon as it is now but you can't just kill a mining tycoon and not expect repercussions (especially when the murderer is a black man, in 1879 there are people that will be all too happy to make sure the lynching does the job the 2nd time around). There are a lot of  flaws in this picture (I won't bother about the accuracy of the gatling gun or that no horse suffered so much as a scratch from all the bullets flying around) and it's those flaws that keep this film from being good. It was entertaining for sure but that's it. It just wasn't very good. It was meh. It's worth seeing if you're a fan of the original just for comparison's sake.