Susan Granger’s review of “The Magnificent Seven” (Sony Pictures)
Impressed by Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese classic “Seven Samurai” (1954), director John Sturges adapted the idea into “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), as Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Horst Buchholtz and Brad Dexter protect a small village from Mexican banditos, led by charismatic Eli Wallach.
Now, Antoine Fuqua (“The Equalizer,” “Training Day”) saddles up seven gunslingers, hired by a spunky, vengeful widow, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), to save a ransacked mining town from Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), a rich, rapacious industrialist.
Set in 1879, as the frontier outpost of Rose Creek is besieged, a prologue quickly establishes how ruthless and evil the villain is before introducing the heroic, multi-racial protagonists.
Bounty-hunter Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington) recruits Josh Faraday (Chris Platt), a roguish, hard-drinking Irish gambler (Chris Pratt); Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), a twitchy Confederate sharp-shooter; Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), a Korean knife-expert; Vasquez (Manuel Garcia Rulfo), a Mexican outlaw; Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), a cantankerous tracker; and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), a renegade Comanche warrior.
Unevenly scripted by Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”) and Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”), it’s filled with archetypal characters yet lacks nuanced exposition. But genre aficionados will note that there is a Gatling gun nod to Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch.”
So it’s left to capable Denzel Washington to propel the camaraderie, which is does with extraordinary capability, particularly when they’re preparing the terrified townsfolk – aptly characterized as “farmers, not fighters” – for Bogue’s inevitable invasion with an army of mercenaries.
The chaotic action is graphic, but Fuqua diligently maintains a PG-13 rating, hoping to attract mainstream multiplex audiences yearning for a Western.
While James Horner’s score is evocative, it’s only near the conclusion that he utilizes Elmer Bernstein’s iconic, instantly recognizable, unforgettably haunting music.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Magnificent Seven” is a shoot-em-up 6, supplying a spectacular barrage of bullets.
