Solid, if Not Quite Magnificent Action: A Review of "The Magnificent Seven"

directed by Antoine Fuqua
written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk

I was never much one for Westerns, but I have been more or less consistently a fan of Denzel Washington since watching his Oscar-winning performance in Edward Zwick's Glory back in 1989. In fact, I've watched almost every one of his films this millennium, whether on the big or small screen. This film marks his third collaboration with director Antoine Fuqua, who directed him to a Best Actor Oscar in 2001's Training Day.

The town of Rose Creek is besieged by the murderous prospector Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who, with his thugs, burns their church and beats their Pastor (Mark Ashworth) to within an inch of his life. One of the townspeople, Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer) speaks out against Bogue and is shot, along with several other townspeople. Desperate, Cullen's widow Emma (Haley Bennett) seeks out men who will help their town, and finds warrant officer Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington). Sam, turn recruits a somewhat motley bunch: gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), Civil War sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and his traveling companion Billy Rocks (Byung Hun Lee), outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), and Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). They are all highly-capable, and make a considerable impression on Bogue's goons when they enter the town. In response, Bogue assembles an army, and the seven get to work training the townspeople of Rose Creek to fight one hell of a battle.

While I never saw the 1960 film by John Sturges which was the direct progenitor of this film, I did watch the 1954 film Seven Samurai, which inspired both of them back when I was in college, and as a result I did have some basis for comparison. Truth be told, I remember very little about that film save for the lovable buffoon played by Toshiro Mifune and the deadly swordsman of the group who could kill an enemy with one sword stroke, who may have been the inspiration for Ethan Hawke's sharpshooter character, but I do remember the climactic battle of the older film, and in that aspect at least, this film compares pretty well.

In terms of setting up the conflict, introducing the seven and leading up to the big showdown at the end, Fuqua and his screenwriters pretty much play the movie by the numbers, but there is some real joy here in seeing the actors who portray the seven play off each other. Washington's Chisolm and Pratt's Faraday have a fairly easy chemistry, as do Chisolm and his long-time friend Robicheaux, perhaps a shout-out to Washington's and Hawke's first on-screen reunion since Training Day. Less well-defined but occasionally amusing is the friendly rivalry between Faraday and Vasquez, which occasionally ventures into vaguely racist quips by from Faraday. Sensmeier's Red Harvest is kind of just...there, while Lee's Billy Rocks character, of unspecified ethnicity (his description as a Chinaman is a bit of deception in the film) gets quite a bit of screen time, mainly to show off his mad skills with knives. I did enjoy D'Onofrio's Jack Horne, though, as he turned in a particularly quirky performance for this character, including an odd bit of falsetto for much of the film. Washington offers another turn as the noble bad-ass he has played to perfection since 2004's Man on Fire, though with a couple of twists this time. Pratt, similarly, is also pretty much the lovable cad from Guardians of the Galaxy. Sarsgaard and the men playing his goons make some effort at being bad but in the end they might as well be villains out of a Marvel movie; they're basically people who do very bad things but fail to come off as particularly memorable, though there is considerable satisfaction when Bogue gets his inevitable comeuppance. Bennett does a creditable turn as one of the film's many innovations over its predecessor: the strong female character.

While some hype has been made about the film's diversity, in terms of actual execution, it feels more like a marketing gimmick than an attempt at meaningful storytelling, and in truth the closest the film ever gets to talking about racial tension is the throwaway jokes between Faraday and Vasquez. This was something that could really have set it apart from its predecessors, whose septets were ethnically homogeneous, and while I understand Fuqua and his writers weren't exactly shooting for Oscar glory here, I really think there were quite a few wasted opportunities, especially since there seem to be vague attempts to liken the bad guy to Donald Trump.

Where the film succeeded for me, though, was the action sequences, and Fuqua, his actors and his stunt crew really pulled out the stops for these scenes, and they are at least as intense as a PG-13 rating (R-13 here in the Philippines) would allow them to be, which, as it turns out was quite a bit. I had approached this film with a measure of trepidation after Fuqua (and Washington) had let me down a bit with The Equalizer, which had the one outstanding action scene and a bunch of lethargic ones, and as a result I was quite pleasantly surprised by how Fuqua put together his vision of the iconic showdown from the first two movies, complete with its blazing gunfights and staggering body count. I found the action quite well-choreographed, and even though some moments (including death scenes) worked better than others, I thought that it played out quite well on the whole. I know stuntmen took over for much of this, but the actors, particularly Washington, got some pretty generous face time during these sequences.

Particularly remarkable for me is how credible Denzel Washington, at the ripe old age of 61, still is as an action hero. For reference, when he was 60, Harrison Ford starred as a submarine commander in K:19 the Widowmaker, not exactly the kind of role that had him running around, and appeared as an old codger of a crime-lord in Cowboys and Aliens. Washington isn't exactly denying his years--in 2010's Unstoppable he played a long-time train operator approaching retirment--but the fact that he can pull off this role by simply dyeing his hair roots a little bit was really something special to behold. I would love for Chris Pratt to rope him into a future Guardians of the Galaxy cameo one day.

Fuqua makes clear his affection for the Western with his sweeping vistas, and while it's hard not to think of what this film could have been I still found myself appreciating it for what it was: a reasonably entertaining romp. Also, while I would have wanted something a little more high-profile as the last project for my favorite composer James Horner, this movie feels like a much better sendoff than Fuqua's boxing drama Southpaw or the little seen mining drama The 33 would have been. Horner's music pervades throughout the film and even though the score was co-composed by frequent Horner collaborator Simon Franglen I really got the sense there was an effort to hew as closely to Horner's style as possible. It's also a bit sad that Horner's music was inevitably overshadowed by Elmer Bernstein's iconic theme, but if nothing else I am grateful that, thanks to this film and much more restrictive bans on tobacco advertising than the ones I grew up with, there is now a whole generation of viewers that will properly identify the theme of The Magnificent Seven with The Magnificent Seven, and not with some cigarette commercial like I did. If for this and nothing else, this movie deserves my genuine affection.

7/10

Something Cool Happened While I Wasn't Looking...

A few days ago I was feeling pretty good about myself...somewhat heroic, in fact, and so to reward myself I went onto youtube to listen to my favorite "heroic" themes, such as the main theme from Gladiator by Hans Zimmer and the original Marvel's Avengers theme by Alan Silvestri. While listening to the latter, I found myself scrolling through the comments to find, to my delight, that Silvestri, whom Marvel replaced in last year's Avengers sequel with Danny Elfman and Brian Tyler will be returning as composer for the next two Avengers films. It turns out, this was announced three months ago.

This may not mean much to people who aren't movie nerds, or comic-book nerds, or comic-book movie nerds, or movie music nerds, but Silvestri, along with the likes of Elfman, Zimmer, the late James Horner, Bruce Broughton and a handful of other composers were a staple of the movies I grew up with in the 1980s, many of whom worked with the soaring orchestral sounds perfected by industry legends John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Silvestri, whose signature soundtrack will, to me, always be his Back to the Future theme, is among the very best of that bunch, and arguably one of the most prolific next to Hans Zimmer.

Anyway, the bottom line is I'll be very happy to welcome Mr. Silvestri back to the MCU!