Review of The Magnificent Seven (2016) by Kaptenvideo — 01 Oct 2017

Once upon a time, there was this bloody western titled „The Magnificent Seven“, released in 1960 and directed by legendary Sergio Leone, which is still considered one of the best movies western genre, it not of all time.

It won’t probably hit you that hard, if you tried to watch now for the first time, what with it being almost 60 years old and all. So you might as well settle for this remake.

This is one of those remakes nobody asked for, but you know it’s gonna be somewhat special if it’s led by Denzel Washington, one of the greatest movie stars of our time, a man with not often rivalled charisma and onscreen presence.

It’s about seven gunmen protecting a town from ruthless robber baron, simple as that. The story or screenplay are nothing special nor especially deep, but they don’t even have to be, because the cast is cool and most of the time is dedicated to blasting off those guns.

The direction is competent, able to use the best of western cliches and build constant suspense; dialogue is adequate; the acting is good enough but there’s no point of writing about all that extensively. First and foremost, this is about shooting people, or preparing to do it, for 132 minutes.

Althought the story is shallow, there is some hidden symbolism which may offer some delight for Jung fans.

The seven heroes are played by Byung-hun Lee, Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, and Vincent D'Onofrio. The robber baron is Peter Sarsgaard. Also appearing, Luke Grimes, Haley Bennett, et al.

Most of the cast plays it straight but some (Hawke, D’Onofrio, Sarsgaard) add a little mental instability to their performances, which brings a welcome variety.

For a movie directed by Antoine Fuqua, „The Magnificent Seven“ is unusually modest and low-key – if you can call a story of massacre that.

It never tries to get glamorous and impress us with visual inventiveness, the latter is mostly reserved for shootouts so we wouldn’t have to watch men dying in same way over and over again.

Then again, the world looks remarkably simple and unglamorous as the true wild west may hav been, Washington, for example, hasn’t looked that ordinary on screen for a long time.

So, this is a simple story well told. Fine entertainment for action lovers, or those who want to see classic western redone with modern tools and resources.