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| Courtesy of Columbia Pictures |
The simple townsfolks’ reaction to black cowboy Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) riding his horse down their street? Straight out of Blazing Saddles. The non-surprising reveal that he’s actually a bounty hunter looking for a fugitive? Lifted wholesale from Django Unchained.
Later, when Chisolm reunites with his old friend Goodnight Robichaux (Ethan Hawke), viewers might picture Hawke, holed up in his trailer on set, watching Val Kilmer’s scenes from Tombstone over and over again with a remote in his hand. (Kilmer can rest easy – his iconic performance as Doc Holliday remains untouchable.)
Plus, director Antoine Fuqua utilizes a host of tropes you’ve seen a million times in Westerns and action flicks, trotted out once again like your favorite band playing an encore at the end of their concert. He stages the opening scene in a familiar way, quickly revealing the uncomplicated, bald-faced villainy of the film’s antagonist (Peter Sarsgaard). Fans of the genre will immediately know who he’s going to murder, simply because the victim has the most famous face that isn’t on the poster. (I laughed when I saw the actor’s name in the opening credits, because his character had already been dead for five minutes.)
Heck, even the premise has become a staple of multiple genres over the past several decades. Industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Sarsgaard) has recently taken over the simple, God-fearing town of Rose Creek to strip it of its valuable resources, destroying anyone who attempts to stand up to him. A widow (Haley Bennett), desperate to avenge her husband’s death, takes it upon herself to recruit a group of tough-but-goodhearted rogues to help the town fight back.
After convincing Chisolm to take up her cause, he enlists sharpshooting huckster Robichaux and his knife-wielding partner Billy Rocks (Byung-Hun Lee), as well as gunslinger Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt); mountain man Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio); outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), a Comanche banished from his tribe. As they train the citizens of Rose Creek to defend themselves and set up a series of clever traps, these seven men prepare themselves for a battle they know they might not survive.
The Magnificent Seven marks Washington’s third collaboration with director Fuqua, and the duo clearly seems to share similar taste when it comes to their stories’ tone, characters and propensity for shocking violence (I was genuinely stunned to realize this was a PG-13 movie). Fuqua has never been known for his subtlety, and Washington – who has played more than his share of complex characters in his career – doesn’t seem to be aiming for that trait lately either.
That mostly works with the role of Chisolm, as Washington is going for the strong, silent type (his version of Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, perhaps). Plus, the dude looks good on a horse; he pulls off one trick in the climactic battle that made my jaw drop (if it was a stuntman, Fuqua does a stellar job of masking the swap).
Pratt is having an absolute blast, a big grin plastered on his face for most of the movie. It doesn’t seem like a character trait as much as the actor’s inability to contain his glee that he’s getting paid to play cowboy with Denzel Washington. Who could blame him?
The rest of the cast is fun as well. Sarsgaard, with absolutely no regard for restraint, plays Bogue as an unhinged madman. He’s only in the movie for a few minutes at the beginning and the end, but somehow he doesn’t twirl his moustache a single time. I’ve already mentioned Hawke’s Doc Holliday impression, but even that’s not the most intriguing performance.
That honor goes to D’Onofrio, who’s in a completely different, far more bonkers movie than everyone else. His high-pitched mountain man comes across as a bit “off,” an easily-angered child in a bear’s body who spouts gibberish as he utterly destroys anyone he decides is an enemy. It’s downright puzzling, but also entertaining.
The Magnificent Seven is the second of several "dad movies” scheduled to hit theaters this fall (the first was Sully, another is next weekend’s Deepwater Horizon), but this one has a shot at being the most financially successful thanks to its hokey throwback charms and some dynamite casting. Now if we could just do something about that unnecessary 132-minute running time…
The Magnificent Seven is rated PG-13 for extended and intense sequences of Western violence, and for historical smoking, some language and suggestive material.
Grade: B
Plus, director Antoine Fuqua utilizes a host of tropes you’ve seen a million times in Westerns and action flicks, trotted out once again like your favorite band playing an encore at the end of their concert. He stages the opening scene in a familiar way, quickly revealing the uncomplicated, bald-faced villainy of the film’s antagonist (Peter Sarsgaard). Fans of the genre will immediately know who he’s going to murder, simply because the victim has the most famous face that isn’t on the poster. (I laughed when I saw the actor’s name in the opening credits, because his character had already been dead for five minutes.)
The filmmaker also crafts a traditional, solidly crafted “putting the team together” sequence, one that gives almost all of the main characters equal amounts of screen time and backstory. But perhaps my favorite cliché, which pops up right on time, is the good ol’ “gunshot fakeout” – the one designed to make viewers think one of the heroes has been shot, only to witness the villain keel over a moment or two later. Fans of Westerns and action flicks will see it coming a mile away, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.
Heck, even the premise has become a staple of multiple genres over the past several decades. Industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Sarsgaard) has recently taken over the simple, God-fearing town of Rose Creek to strip it of its valuable resources, destroying anyone who attempts to stand up to him. A widow (Haley Bennett), desperate to avenge her husband’s death, takes it upon herself to recruit a group of tough-but-goodhearted rogues to help the town fight back.
After convincing Chisolm to take up her cause, he enlists sharpshooting huckster Robichaux and his knife-wielding partner Billy Rocks (Byung-Hun Lee), as well as gunslinger Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt); mountain man Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio); outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), a Comanche banished from his tribe. As they train the citizens of Rose Creek to defend themselves and set up a series of clever traps, these seven men prepare themselves for a battle they know they might not survive.
The Magnificent Seven marks Washington’s third collaboration with director Fuqua, and the duo clearly seems to share similar taste when it comes to their stories’ tone, characters and propensity for shocking violence (I was genuinely stunned to realize this was a PG-13 movie). Fuqua has never been known for his subtlety, and Washington – who has played more than his share of complex characters in his career – doesn’t seem to be aiming for that trait lately either.
That mostly works with the role of Chisolm, as Washington is going for the strong, silent type (his version of Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, perhaps). Plus, the dude looks good on a horse; he pulls off one trick in the climactic battle that made my jaw drop (if it was a stuntman, Fuqua does a stellar job of masking the swap).
Pratt is having an absolute blast, a big grin plastered on his face for most of the movie. It doesn’t seem like a character trait as much as the actor’s inability to contain his glee that he’s getting paid to play cowboy with Denzel Washington. Who could blame him?
The rest of the cast is fun as well. Sarsgaard, with absolutely no regard for restraint, plays Bogue as an unhinged madman. He’s only in the movie for a few minutes at the beginning and the end, but somehow he doesn’t twirl his moustache a single time. I’ve already mentioned Hawke’s Doc Holliday impression, but even that’s not the most intriguing performance.
That honor goes to D’Onofrio, who’s in a completely different, far more bonkers movie than everyone else. His high-pitched mountain man comes across as a bit “off,” an easily-angered child in a bear’s body who spouts gibberish as he utterly destroys anyone he decides is an enemy. It’s downright puzzling, but also entertaining.
The Magnificent Seven is the second of several "dad movies” scheduled to hit theaters this fall (the first was Sully, another is next weekend’s Deepwater Horizon), but this one has a shot at being the most financially successful thanks to its hokey throwback charms and some dynamite casting. Now if we could just do something about that unnecessary 132-minute running time…
The Magnificent Seven is rated PG-13 for extended and intense sequences of Western violence, and for historical smoking, some language and suggestive material.
Grade: B
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