Magnificent Seven, The (2016) [Blu-ray]
Action | Adventure | Western

Tagline: Justice has a number.

Director Antoine Fuqua brings his modern vision to a classic story in The Magnificent Seven. With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue, the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.

Storyline: Director Antoine Fuqua brings his modern vision to a classic story in The Magnificent Seven. With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue, the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, December 14, 2016 Now this is a remake. Forget the try-hard Ben-Hur; Director Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven nails the process, taking the original (which is itself a re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai) and not exactly repurposing it, but slicking it up just enough for modern audiences while remaining faithful to both the source and the greater Western genre. It finds that happy medium middle ground between classic and contemporary, light and serious, fundamentally faithful and fluidly original. Perhaps more than anything else that makes the movie a success -- its authentic period feel, performances, score, cinematography -- it's the obvious love with which it's been crafted, a love of the material and the genre alike that helps the movie overcome any nitpick-y shortcomings in its translation to 2016. Fuqua gives himself plenty of room to play by respecting the past and making the movie his own, but still texturally and, mostly, fundamentally a classic Western in every way beyond the date it was made and some of the snappier filmmaking techniques that only enhance the movie, not overwhelm or lessen it.

The dusty, middle-of-nowhere town of Rose Creek finds itself under the oppressive thumb of corrupt businessman Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) who holds the town at literal and figurative gunpoint. Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), widow of one of Bogue's victims, seeks aid from an outside source to protect the town and drive Bogue and his men away. She meets Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington), a man serving warrants whose interest in piqued when he hears the details. Chisholm assembles a ragtag band of men with varied skill sets and a willingness to aid him, and the people of Rose Creek, in the mission: a card shark and gunslinger named Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), land man Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), marksman Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), a Comanche named Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), and an expert knife-thrower named Billy Rocks (Lee Byung-hun).

The Magnificent Seven is so faithful in its adherence to genre structure, style, motif, and even tropes that it borders on parody in a few of its lighter moments, but on the flip side the film proves its worth as a serious update for just those qualities. It's not just reflective of the genre, it lives it, inhales the same dust, wears the same clothes, fires the same guns. Fuqua's passion for it is obvious with every shot, even when it's clear he's taking a brief respite from the film's more serious storylines and characters to chew on some of his favorite genre standbys. The film boasts expert production values that, as the name implies, value authenticity but, at the same time, breathe life into the movie and ready it for the steady cadence of its heartbeat that the cast provides. The film's diverse "seven" melt into the movie. Never is it about where they come from or what they look like, at least beyond those times the movie makes mention in some form or fashion. It's instead about what they can do together, the individual qualities that make them a rugged and ready unit. Cast camaraderie is terrific, the actors' skills with blades or firearms never appear unnaturally practiced, and they wear the clothes and ride the horses like they grew up on the range. Fuqua gets the most from his cast, one of the most likable collections one will ever find in the Western genre. Vincent D'Onofrio and Byung-hun Lee steal the show, while Denzel Washington is perfectly cast as the group's stalwart leader. Chris Pratt epitomizes the movie, delivering a performance that's equal parts fun and serious and all Western.

Cinematography is breathtakingly fantastic. Not only are traditional Western vistas captured to their full beauty, they're presented in their full functionality too, with every sandy or grassy expanse, range, structure, cloud in the sky, everything in frame playing some role in enhancing the composition of a shot or building on the story. It's fluid and a fantastic extension of what the genre has always done so well, here perfected in an obvious, but seamless, manner. The score, started by legendary Composer James Horner and completed posthumously by Simon Franglen, shapes the film in that same style as Pratt's performance and character: classic, fun, and serious all rolled into one. Gunplay is terrific. Action scenes are complexly staged but gracefully occurring. They're chaotic but controlled to where the audience can follow the action. They're entertaining but deadly serious from both the business end of the gun and also from the business end of the narrative. This is everything most anyone could want in a contemporary Western. It's traditional where it must remain so, updated just enough to lure modern viewers, faithful to the ideas of the original, wonderfully cast, and passionately directed. Bravo.

The Magnificent Seven is another in the slowly growing list of wonderfully reimagined Westerns, joining the likes of 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit as new standard-bearers for both the genre and the larger world of cinematic remakes. Simply put, it's just a damn good movie in every way: faithfulness, uniqueness, authenticity, style, casting, performances, direction, cinematography, editing, score. It's a terrific example of why the Western was, and can be again, America's genre and why it still holds relevant even today, decades removed from its John Wayne heyday. Sony's Blu-ray release is fantastic, boasting impeccable video, terrific audio (still wish it featured Atmos, though) and a nice collection of bonus content. The Magnificent Seven earns my highest recommendation.

[CSW] -3.3- A remake of a remake of a remake. It started with Seven Samurai (1954) followed by The Magnificent Seven (1960) and then this one The Magnificent Seven (2016). Each was good in its own right but still a little bit less than its predecessor. That is not to take anything away from any of them as each was good in its own right. It is only by comparison that one is better that another. On its own this was a good and entertaining western. Hollywood happily did NOT remake this movie exactly as the original western. Every actor was well cast although some are just glossed over without development. The plotline is rock solid. It had all the action and drama of a good western and an ending that I found satisfying. What more can you ask for in a movie… maybe it is not the greatest but it was still great.
[V5.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box


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