Here’s the thing about remakes: you’ll always have the original. The Magnificent Seven (2016) will fall under attack by hundreds of film critics as an easy target for the usual criticism but their flaw will be in comparing this updated rendition with the 1960 Western starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. With but one or two nods to memorable moments from the 1960 classic, this movie consists entirely of a new rendition of a familiar theme: seven men each with a different motive for self-retribution, attempt to justify their pitiful existence by extracting a menace that has chosen to defy the law.
You won’t find a Mexican bandit as the heavy here. Instead, industrialist Bartholomew Bogue and his dastardly band of armed cronies stride into the town of Rose Creek, force farmers into mining a number of gold mines, shoot a number of town citizens in the street and burns down the church. And he does so in front of the town sheriff. A beautiful widow (played by Haley Bennett) seeks out Lincoln Chisolm (Denzel Washington) to recruit an army of men to defend the town. “I seek righteousness. But I’ll take revenge,” she explains. What she gets for her money is seven misfits each with unique talents and each with a personal reason for joining the fight.
The remake borrows from the 1960 classic the premise and a Western motif, but everything else is different. The fight is north of the Mexican border, not below. The Elmer Bernstein music is not featured during the course of the story. The ethnically and racially diverse cast brings an interesting dynamic to the story and while advance publicity quotes Denzel Washington as being historically accurate for the time, I suspect demographics played a toll in the casting. In today’s age where stereotypes often mean a drop in ticket sales (negative typecasting of Mexicans could mean a four percent drop in ticket sales), The Magnificent Seven makes me wonder just how they will portray The Alamo in the next remake.
Westerns are still profitable on the big screen but in an era where product placement dictates how the story is played out, and product placement is practically non-existent in Westerns, it will be interesting to learn how much money this movie makes before it leaves the first run theaters.
All of the actors played their roles admirably. I have never been a fan of director Antoine Fuqua, even though he directed a couple good movies. This movie may just be his best directing assignment ever.
The Magnificent Seven is a good movie. You will enjoy it more if you avoid the pitfall of comparing it to the original.
