Green Goblin Reviews: The Magnificent Seven
So when I wrote about Suicide Squad, I went back to 2007 to compare it to Smokin’ Aces. A comparison that, when tossed out there, seemed to be met with a lot of “Holy shit, you’re right!!” from multiple people. I’m glad I could both deride that mediocre film, while also offering a better one as substitute. But moving forward, I don’t think I’ll have to reach that far back anymore, thanks to the remake of a remake that is The Magnificent Seven.
I’m serious. Virtually everything you may have wanted from Suicide Squad is found in this movie. You’ve got a group of seven notorious killers that dance on the line of moral ambiguity coming together for the greater good to stop an insurmountable army of notorious hired gunmen, led by what is basically a Wild West supervillain, from laying siege to and destroying a town of simple farmers. Amongst out merry crew are Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) as the badass out-of-state lawman, Goodnight (Ethan Hawke) as a former Confederate sharpshooter with some PTSD, Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt) as a charming gambler trick-shot, Billy Rocks as an East Asian assassin with a fondness for blades, Jack Horne (a nearly unrecognizable Vincent D’Onofrio) as a soft-spoken brute, Vasquez as a gunslinger Mexican desperado and an exiled Comanche warrior and archer known as Red Harvest.
The characters play off of each other well enough, setting aside obvious differences (ie: racism) for the good of the mission. They’re contracted by a newly made widow of the town of Rose Creek to deal with a wealthy gold miner Bart Bogue’s operation that has laid siege to their land, poisoned their water (these are farmers, remember?) and basically made sport at pressuring them to leave. As far as villains go, this guy is straight out of a comic book, in terms of maliciousness. And actor Peter Sarsgaard brings a cold detachment to the character that, while sometimes, over-the-top, sells the intimidation game very well. You can see that this is a guy that has no problem murdering innocents to fulfill his needs. To him, it’s just another day at the office.
THe majority of the film is basically setting up the pieces for the third act. The crew is gathered, the get to the town of Rose Creek and they’re given a week to prep the town for all-out war, before the nefarious Bogue brings his army down on them in a spectacular climax. Now, as previously laid out, the unscrupulous nature and skills in the fine art of killings gives the director carte blanche to allow the titular characters to die at he drop of a hat. Or at least, that WOULD be the case, were this not a retelling of a 1960’s western, which was in itself a remake of a Kurosawa Samurai film from the 50’s. As such, when the battle is on, the characters tend to have that special “Lord of the Rings” power in which they’re worth about a dozen other men on the battlefield. This is a bit of a double edged sword, in that it allows you to clearly see why these individuals were specifically sought out to form the team to defend the town, but it also alleviates some of the tension earlier on until what can only be described as a miniboss shows up on the battlefield. Thankfully, the set-pieces are well staged with very little cutaway and each character has their moment to shine (moments that actually feel EARNED). The stunts feel authentic in a way that’s a few steps above a theme park stunt show, but still not hitting as hard as say the True Grit reboot or Their Will Be Blood. Still, they do manage to get away with more than I would have imagined was possible in a PG-13 film.
For the most part, there isn’t really much that this film does that’s groundbreaking, but that’s not why you’re there. When a film is a remake of basically THE Samurai film (seriously, kids. Go see “Seven Samurai” if you haven’t already), it doesn’t feel right to deduct points from it. It’s like attempting to get on John Carter of Mars for being cliche. Long story short, you’d be forgiven for catching this film on Blu Ray if you’re not chomping at the bit for a Western fix. But what the film DOES do is offer memorable characters, a goal to cheer for, a villain that you want to see go down hard, a compelling narrative and payoff in the third act. In a summer that’s been fairly hit-or-miss, you can do far worse. It didn’t knock my socks off, but I wasn’t expecting it to. In fact, for a film that I straight up didn’t know was a thing until 2 days before opening night, I’d say it did pretty damn good.
7.5/10
If you like Westerns or are in the mood for a decent action film, it’s worth the price of admission.