The current remake of The Magnificent Seven with Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt in the roles developed in 1960 by Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen seemed promising. But this new film is anything but magnificent, especially as it opened while riots fueled by police shootings raged in cities across this country. The Seven demonstrate some of the same “shut up or I’ll shoot” sensibilities that we’ve been seeing on the news, and that makes it difficult to identify these Seven as heroes.
Several plot points have been updated to correlate with contemporary issues, to the detriment of the film. In the 1960 film, Mexican villagers seek relief from a bandit named Calvera (Eli Wallach) who has been plundering their community for food and supplies; in the modern version, the Mexican villagers have become Euro-American farmers, and the bandito Calvera is now robber baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), played to the hilt as a melodramatic, two-dimensional, mustache-twirling villain. Instead of demanding food and water (which modern audiences might consider reasonable), he is set on forcing the farmers to sell him their land for a mere $20 a parcel, because gold’s been discovered in them thar hills.
The Seven demonstrate some of the same “shut up or I’ll shoot” sensibilities that we’ve been seeing on the news, and that makes it difficult to identify these Seven as heroes.
I sort of liked this nod toward the evils of eminent domain, but instead of simply securing a government mandate to make the farmers sell him their land, (which is what the robber barons did in order to build their railroads) Bogue shoots a few townsfolk and burns down the church to make his point. I half expected him to tie a young maiden to a railroad track. Another problem is that we never see any evidence of farms anywhere, despite numerous long shots of the area around the town. Moreover, gold is usually found in mountainous areas, not in fertile plains. But oh well. That’s Hollywood.
In the 1960 film the Mexican villagers cross the border into Texas to buy guns and ammunition with which to protect themselves, but a gunslinger, Chris Adams (Yul Brynner) convinces them that it would be cheaper and safer to hire professional protection. I’ve always liked this libertarian solution to their problem. The villagers don’t have much money, but they are willing to give all that they have, every penny, to a good cause, echoing the New Testament story of the widow’s mite. Moved by their determination and personal sacrifice, Chris agrees to gather a group of gunslingers to help them, even though he knows that he and his men are likely to die in the process. (I think there’s something significant in the anti-hero’s name being Chris.)
I needed some heart in this movie — and not the kind that Sam Chisolm and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) share from the body of a freshly gutted deer.
In the new film, Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) is touched by the same gesture, and as he agrees to help the villagers he says, “It isn’t a lot of money, but I’ve never had anyone offer me everything they have.” But that’s where the similarities between the two films end. Instead of a gunslinger, Chisolm is a warrant officer (one step above a bounty hunter, and a government representative), whom we first meet when he enters a saloon looking for a fugitive. No one else in the saloon knows he’s a warrant officer, so they all put their hands on their guns, worried by what is about to happen. Soon everyone in the saloon has either skedaddled or died except Sam and John Faraday (Chris Pratt), who had been playing poker when the mayhem started. I know we’re supposed to be impressed by Chisolm’s cool, calm, skillful dispatching of everyone who had the drop on him, but I’m outraged instead. The bartender might indeed have had a warrant out for his arrest, but the others were simply reacting to a stranger threatening their friend with a gun. And isn’t the bartender entitled to a trial before his execution? Surely there was a simpler, less deadly way to serve the warrant. Chisholm should at least have identified himself for the benefit of the rest of the crowd.
And then there’s Faraday. Everyone else has left the poker table, so he checks their cards, scoops up all the money, and sidles out of the saloon, where two brothers he has evidently swindled in a previous card game surprise him, take his guns, and shove him toward the entrance of a mine shaft. Soon one of them is dead and the other one is missing an ear, and Faraday’s flippant excuse is, “He shouldn’t have touched my guns.” Really? That’s why he killed the man? I know there was a Code of the West regarding horses, hats, and guns, but it also forbade cheating at cards, right? That makes Faraday at least as guilty of violating the Code as the brothers, so Faraday gets no sympathy, or approval, from me.
Next we meet Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), who make their money by competing in a kind of human cockfight. Here more people end up dead, just for the fun of it. But it’s OK, I guess, because these victims have stupidly entered the ring of their own volition. After that there’s Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), who makes his screen entrance by flinging an axe into someone’s chest. Please! Give me Steve McQueen stealing scenes by fiddling with his hat and Charles Bronson stealing the hearts of three little boys in the town so that our hearts are broken in the end.
Bogue shoots a few townsfolk and burns down the church to make his point. I half expected him to tie a young maiden to a railroad track.
I needed some heart in this movie — and not the kind that Sam Chisolm and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) share from the body of a freshly gutted deer. One thing I can say: the film has diversity covered, with a black, an Asian, a Native American, a Mexican, a Southerner, two whites, and a woman, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett, as the town resident who hires the so-called good guys to avenge the death of her husband).
Mayhem continues as the Seven enter the town they’ve been hired to liberate. Bang, bang, pow, pow, twang, twang — and everyone who was standing outside is now dead, with some pretty fancy shootin’ there, pardner. But how do the vigilantes know who’s a bad guy? They’ve never been to this town before, and no one is wearing a uniform. This kind of shoot-now, assume-you’re-right attitude just didn’t sit well with me when my heart was grieving for the many people whose lives have been senselessly cut short by nervous, trigger-happy policemen and the rioters who think it gives them the right to loot and kill other innocents in response. The timing of the release of this film could not have been worse.
And if you set aside the timing, it still isn’t a very good film. It’s all about shooting, exploding, and killing, with very little character development. In the 1960 version, director John Sturges took the time to develop relationships among the gunslingers and the families in the village they have chosen to help. As a result, we sense that these men are laying down their lives for their friends. In this film, by contrast, Sam and Emma are driven by revenge, and many others are driven by a wanton enjoyment of murder and casual disregard for life. That cause isn’t noble enough for me. I came home and watched the 1960 version on Amazon Prime, just to wipe away the stench.
