The Magnificent Seven

Of all the genres that comprises Hollywood films, one of the oldest is that of the western. We've all grown up watching films and TV shows with guns a blazing and the good guys eventually gunning it out with the bad guys in the street of the town at high noon. So when I saw my first trailer of the reboot of "The Magnificent Seven", I felt in my gut that this film is going to rock and it does in spades.

In this remake of the 1960 classic of the same name (itself a Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, "The Seven Samurai"), seven gunslingers join forces in order to protect Rose Creek, a small town from a mining tycoon, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his goons who plan to seize the residents' land by force. The seven man army is led by a mysterious bounty hunter, Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), and also includes a sharp-witted gambler, Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), a troubled ex-Civil War soldier, Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), a mountain man, Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), an expert knife thrower, Billy Rocks (Byung hun-Lee), an outlaw, Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and a Comanche warrior, Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) all hired by Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), one of the resisdents of Rose Creek.

Others to round out the cast are Luke Grimes as Teddy Q, Matt Bomer as Matthew Cullen, husband of Emma, Jonathan Ross as Devali, Cam Gigandet as McCann, Emil Beheshti as Maxwell and Mark Ashworth as Preacher.

This was grittily and intensely directed by Antoine Fuqua ("The Replacement Killers" '98, "Bait" 2000, "Training Day" '01, "Tears of the Sun" '03, "King Arthur" '04, "Shooter" '07, "Brooklyn's Finest" '09, "Olympus Has Fallen" '13, "The Equalizer" '14, "Southpaw" '15) plus TV movies and documentaries. This filmmaker is a consummate pro in the ability of getting his actors to emit the right amount of emotion with just the right timing. Of course, working again with both Washington and Hawke as he did in "Training Day" makes this time around that much easier for him. He had mentioned that he'd always wanted to direct a western and jumped at the chance. This film was made for him to direct considering its quality. It was well-crafted by writers Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto. While Wenk has quite a bit of feature film writing experience, Pizzolatto only has TV writing experience. It seems like this was a learning experience for Pizzolatto working under the wings of Wenk. Wenk has written for other Fuqua films in the past, so the working relationship certainly is spot on between writer and director. The continuity, staging, pacing, and cohesiveness of this script was amazing. With the exception of "Ocean's Eleven", this reboot was probably better than the 1960 version. Of course the original version "Seven Samurai" written by Akira Kirosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni was a masterpiece. Another aspect of this that shined was that of cinematographer, Mauro Fiore, asc ("Training Day" '01, "Avatar" '09, "The Equalizer" '14, "Southpaw" '15) plus many others. As with his past films, his photography is distinct, concise and cutting edge. This film has that sweeping feel to its photography being in the wide outdoors, and with that exudes a fantastic look on the large screen. 

What makes this film more than it being a well made western is the quality of the people who worked on it. Fuqua, Washington, Pratt, Hawke and many others were at the top of their craft with this production. Even if the western genre isn't your favorite, this is so well made that you will be able to overlook that aspect and be able to escape and not only enjoy the acting, directing and writing, but be entertained as well. Go and enjoy the ride. I know I did.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                          Rated: PG-13                                      132mins.