Review of The Magnificent Seven (2016) by Paul F — 08 Oct 2016

It's been a while since I've seen one of these: a movie that's a hell of a fun time to watch that's also a movie that isn't half-bad. The Magnificent Seven is a western action film directed by Antoine Fuqua, a director who has routinely showed audiences that he can handle any kind of movie: action (Olympus Has Fallen, The Equalizer), boxing (Southpaw), crime drama (Training Day), thriller (Shooter), and now western. Based on the trailers, the cast, and other things I knew about the film, I went into the theater expecting some great popcorn entertainment, and I wasn't disappointed.

As the title suggests, the film centers on seven stereotypical bad-asses, played by a cast of well-rounded actors, with the obvious standouts being Denzel Washington, a frequent collaborator with Fuqua and one of my personal favorites in today's film industry, and Chris Pratt, who brings his usual charisma, humor, and confidence to the script. For the most part, Fuqua does a good job at incorporating all seven characters into the script and building their characters. The roles of Vincent D'Onofrio, Ethan Hawke, and Haley Bennett (not one of the seven), for instance, surprised me, and I was more invested in their characters than I thought I would be. But of course, with so many main characters, the film still struggled to make me care about one or two of them.

Now, in terms of these characters and their story, there's nothing original in The Magnificent Seven: there's an asshole (Peter Sarsgaard) who wants land, money, and power, and will destroy a town and kill everyone in it to get those things. The only thing stopping him? Denzel and his crew. This is something we've all seen dozens of times with different actors and settings, and we've all got a pretty good idea of how everything is going to end. However, the film does everything in its power to divert audiences from that fact, and it does a damn good job. First of all, the action scenes here are awesome: that's the best word I can think of to describe them. Seeing the characters throw down and unload their guns on each other was great, and the final 45 minutes of the movie provides one of the most glorious, and creative, Western shoot-outs that I've seen in a while. The pacing also does a good job at keeping viewers engaged: the movie wastes no time in squabbling over unneeded build-up, and does this from start to finish. And, of course, the performances made everything so much better (I mean, Chris Pratt... what's not to love?).

In the end, The Magnificent Seven didn't exceed my expectations or blow me away. But it was entertaining as hell, serving as an exciting action thriller to keep me busy while I wait for The Accountant to come out next week. So, if you're one of my fellow college students on fall break looking for something to do this weekend, take an evening to go see this.