Review of The Magnificent Seven (2016) by Phil M — 03 Nov 2016

Antoine Fuqua has proved his stylistic excellence in a variety of genres and he only confirms his mastery of genre aesthetics with his entertaining re-telling of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. While this remake does not quite rise to the level of Sturges' original western epic or Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (which inspired THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN), it does take the framework and spirit of the previous stories and morph them to Fuqua's narrative interests. These interests indeed seem to warrant the updated version of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN by encouraging some awareness regarding exploitation of the poor. Sadly, the story-telling is sometimes painfully straight-forward and the themes, while relevant, are paper thin. The script is also occasionally laden with potentially over-literal adherence to the diction of the period by including various jokes about race. If these jokes were included to encourage reflexivity, that may be one thing - sadly, the diction seems to be selectively included only to solicit laughs from passive audience members.

On the upside, the charismatic cast generally do a good job of executing Fuqua's vision of the through-line narrative and aesthetic choices. Denzel Washington is reliable as always with Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo performing excellent supporting roles with unique and fascinating physical and vocal characterizations. Chris Pratt's character is clearly intended as the prominent supporting part, but, as much as I typically enjoy Chris Pratt, he comes off as playing just another iteration of Owen Grady or Peter Quill. The most truly impressive supporting performance comes from Peter Sarsgaard's nervous, but cocky exploitative villain. Sarsgaard brings physical and vocal contrast to the diction of his character which makes for a magnetizing on-screen presence.

In addition to the acting performances, the cinematography and score felt like high points of the movie to me as well. The musical score was written by the late James Horner and completed for the picture with the help of Simon Franglen. Horner's final soundtrack is delightfully appropriate to Fuqua's narrative beats and the aesthetics of this particular action/western cross-genre.

In sum, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN stumbles in writing and some of the characterization, but it is entertaining and even, at times, beautiful in its high points - namely Fuqua's direction, Hawke and Sarsgaard's acting, and Horner's clever score.