The Magnificent Seven (2016)

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Now, here’s a remake that’s excellent! I said the day before that, in general, remakes are bad, especially if I base my opinion on the two Fright Night films or on Flatliners. Admittedly, the first was heavily inspired by the Japanese film The Seven Samurai directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1954.

The Magnificent Seven (2016) is a film I absolutely wanted to see… and it didn’t disappoint. That’s pretty rare! With a superb cast. Well, the trio of Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Ethan Hawke already announced something great… but adding Haley Bennett, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Peter Sarsgaard was also a good idea. South Korea’s Byung-Hun Lee, Martin Sensmeier, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo are great discoveries.

Denzel and Ethan reunite fifteen years later, having already made Training Day (2001) together. By the same director, incidentally: Antoine Fuqua.

As for the only female lead, Haley Bennett, she’s in a film I don’t really like, The Girl on the Train (2016), and in another I love: Music and Lyrics (2007). Other than that, I don’t really know much about this talented actress-singer. That said, back in 2014 she starred with Denzel Washington (and Chloë Grace Moretz) in Equalizer… also an Antoine Fuqua film!

This film joins Silverado (1985), Bad Girls (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995) as my favourite westerns… not to mention the fact that it’s always a pleasure to see a film starring Clint Eastwood, too, even if I’m less familiar with them than with the films I’ve just mentioned.

The first, The Magnificent Seven (1960), already had a crack trio: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, and Steve McQueen. It was just as sad, but just as powerful. Charles Bronson was there too.

As for Robert Vaughn, he died the year the remake was released. As a result, he was still the last of the seven to be envied. His departure closed the final chapter of a whole story. I wonder how much this had to do with the creation of this film.

It’s a relatively perfect feature film, gripping from start to finish, right through to the end credits, which themselves are excellent, with the character introductions just the way I like them.

The main score remains faithful to the original and the others are very good.

There are two big action scenes. The second lasts a good half hour, since it’s also the crucial moment that made all the preparation for the beginning worthwhile. In a western like this, it’s fine! In an action film, it wouldn’t be quite so convincing, as far as I’m concerned. Of course, if you don’t like gunfight scenes that already last five minutes, you’ll have to pass!

And there are plenty of people who can just walk away! Look elsewhere if you don’t like westerns or if it bothers you that a black man is the leader of a team, especially if you swear by Django Unchained where racism was present everywhere and slavery could be made entertaining! Read up on the history and you’ll be surprised to see that not everything was black or white, or that certain people weren’t banned from every corner of America.

Move on if you don’t like it when an Asian (who you might call Chinese or Japanese, depending on your perception) speaks without an accent, if you think that Chris Pratt is a child actor or that he has indignantly destroyed the character previously played by Steve McQueen, if you’d rather have seen Jennifer Lawrence than Haley Bennett!

Walk away if you don’t like the fact that a redskin killer ends up with a Native American who even decides to avenge him.

Skip it if you only like French films which, for you, are the only masterpieces in the world. And finally… if you think that nothing will ever dethrone the original or be as good as the 1960 version, it’s safe to say that die-hard fans are and will continue to be shocked that the ratings for this film are as high as those for their originals.

I’m always surprised when I see criticisms that are completely the opposite of my own. As far as I’m concerned, I got what I wanted… and nobody’s going to take that away from me, despite all their fine theories about grumpy, jaded people with no zest for life and always sanctimonious.

You don’t watch this film for its realism!
Who cares if it’s just seven men up against an army?
What about Rambo?
No, we’re watching this film for the humour, the friendship, the life choices and, above all, the great values it conveys, which are obviously above most people’s heads.

To all those who are sniggering as they read this: Look around you! Do you like the world you helped to create?
Here’s a review to round off mine:
‘Very good remake of the remake. Normally a copy of a copy is very bad, but not this one. The actors are very good, the music excellent, the story is revised just enough. In short, a very good remake of a remake’.