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Review: Denzel Washington Rides High in ‘The Magnificent Seven’

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By Manohla Dargis

• Sept. 22, 2016

Denzel Washington looks just right high in the saddle, which makes sense given that he’s become our John Wayne — our point-and-shoot savior. It’s a funny business being a hero these days, and Mr. Washington has the résumé to prove it, with characters — a corrupt cop, a drug kingpin — that would have been unthinkable for Wayne, who saved the day when the lines between right and wrong were more rigidly defined. Those lines have blurred, of course, and good guys went sort of bad and sometimes very bad, partly because we like it like that. (It feels so good.)

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Magnificent Seven’

Antoine fuqua narrates a sequence from the film..

Mr. Washington’s latest, “The Magnificent Seven,” is a remake of a remake that’s as fresh as recycled recycling suggests. Its principal source is the 1960 film of the same title about a septet of hired American guns protecting a Mexican village. In that film Yul Brynner played the prowling avenger and real cool cat who assembles a team that includes a blade-thin James Coburn and Steve McQueen, whose beauty had not yet hardened. Directed by John Sturges, the film is an easy, meandering male weepy, best enjoyed for its macho posturing and Elmer Bernstein score; less memorable are its Mexican clichés, even if Eli Wallach’s mustache-twirler delivers a defibrillator punch.

The font of all this mock magnificence is Akira Kurosawa’s “ Seven Samurai ,” a version of which was released in the United States in 1956 as “The Magnificent Seven” (with an hour chopped). In his review, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times compared it to “High Noon,” calling it “a solid, naturalistic, he-man outdoor action film, wherein the qualities of human strength and weakness are discovered in a crisis taut with peril.” Mr. Crowther noted that its story was malleable enough that “it could be transposed without surrendering a basic element to the nineteenth century and a town on our own frontier.” From his pen to some Hollywood executive’s ear.

Movie Review: ‘The Magnificent Seven’

The times critic manohla dargis reviews “the magnificent seven”.

“The Magnificent Seven” is a remake of the 1960 western, in which seven hired guns protect a village. In her review, Manohla Dargis writes: The film is a remake of a remake that’s as fresh as recycled recycling suggests. Under the adequate if unremarkable direction of Antoine Fuqua, the film leaves no genre element untouched, from gun spinning to trick riding to atmospherically flapping dusters. The new movie is as moth-eaten as the serapes strewn through the 1960 film, but there’s no denying the appeal of the image of Denzel Washington riding a horse. He is, to state the over-obvious, a great star, which means that he has that ineluctable what’s-it for selling the goods no matter what their sell-by date.

And so once more onto the saddle — again! This time, the seven are riding — and shooting — under the adequate if unremarkable direction of Antoine Fuqua. Working with truckloads of dust and high-contrast cinematography that tends to turn shadows into bottomless inky blots, Mr. Fuqua approaches the western like an ardent fan, leaving no genre element untouched, from gun spinning to trick riding to atmospherically flapping dusters. The story — the script is credited to Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk — pretty much follows the line of the 1960 film, with some tweaks that speak to contemporary mores, including a gun-toting frontierswoman, Emma (Haley Bennett).

She’s sassy, but some messes a gal can’t clean up alone, so she hires the gunslingers, beginning with Mr. Washington’s bounty hunter, Chisolm. She wants to rid her town of its own mustache-twirler, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), a trigger-happy dandy with a devilish goatee, an embroidered vest and hordes of help. He and his gang are terrorizing an American town, which has the bad fortune of being next to a mine he’s plundering. Emma makes her pitch to Chisolm while he stares down at her from horseback. He casually asks if she’s after revenge. “I seek righteousness,” she replies, “but I’ll take revenge,” an exchange that affirms the story’s bloody course.

The new movie is as moth-eaten as the serapes strewn through the 1960 film, but there’s no denying the appeal of the image of Mr. Washington riding a horse, shooting a Colt and leading a posse of vigilantes to save a mostly white Western town. Mr. Washington is, to state the overobvious, a great star, which means that he has that ineluctable what’s-it for selling the goods no matter what their sell-by date. And he has nice help in his amusing backup team, which is divided between parading peacocks (Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio and Mr. Sarsgaard) and slinking foxes (Ethan Hawke, Lee Byung-hun and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who steal gnawed-off bits and pieces of the movie.

Mr. Washington’s hero — because he’s a black man and especially a black man in a genre historically defined by white men routing nonwhite men — is inherently more complex than Brynner’s was. That could have been enough to justify this remake, so it’s too bad that Chisolm has been given a rationale for his actions. The 1960 film never really explains why Brynner’s character helps the villagers, which suggests that he doesn’t need a reason to do good, he just does it, a silence that suggests a code, however fraudulent. Chisolm, by contrast, has his sights set on vengeance, which means that his deeds are strictly a matter of self-interest. That’s pretty grim, but also very now.

“The Magnificent Seven” is rated PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned) for relentless gun violence. Running time: 2 hours 12 minutes.

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The Magnificent Seven

Seven gunmen from a variety of backgrounds are brought together by a vengeful young widow to protect her town from the private army of a destructive industrialist. Seven gunmen from a variety of backgrounds are brought together by a vengeful young widow to protect her town from the private army of a destructive industrialist. Seven gunmen from a variety of backgrounds are brought together by a vengeful young widow to protect her town from the private army of a destructive industrialist.

• Antoine Fuqua
• Akira Kurosawa
• Shinobu Hashimoto
• Hideo Oguni
• Denzel Washington
• Chris Pratt
• Ethan Hawke
• 615 User reviews
• 396 Critic reviews
• 54 Metascore
• 5 wins & 12 nominations

• Josh Faraday

• Goodnight Robicheaux

• Billy Rocks

• Red Harvest

• Emma Cullen

• Bartholomew Bogue

• Matthew Cullen

• Hank Stoner
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia According to director Antoine Fuqua , Martin Sensmeier was cast as Red Harvest because he auditioned with luxuriant, almost knee-length hair. Sensmeier wasn't told his hair was a selling point, and he cut his hair soon after. Fuqua was upset, then got the idea for Sensmeier to have his hair cut into a Mohawk.
• Goofs As the crew ride into the mining operation to score some dynamite, a 45-starred American flag is flying on a wooden pole. That configuration flew from 1896 (admission of Utah) to 1907 (admission of Oklahoma). In 1879 the flag would have had only 38 stars.

Sam Chisolm : What we lost in the fire, we found in the ashes.

• Crazy credits Part of the closing credits are a montage of the Magnificent Seven and their actor credits, which ends with a big red seven that contains the faces of the seven. The theme from The Magnificent Seven (1960) plays over this montage.
• Connections Featured in Double Toasted: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 2016 MOVIE REVIEW (2016)
• Soundtracks Theme from The Magnificent Seven Written by Elmer Bernstein

User reviews 615

• kerryhill123
• Oct 20, 2016
• How long is The Magnificent Seven? Powered by Alexa
• September 23, 2016 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official site
• North American Indian
• Bảy Tay Súng Huyền Thoại
• San Francisco Peaks, Arizona, USA
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Columbia Pictures
• LStar Capital
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $90,000,000 (estimated)
• $93,432,655
• $34,703,397
• Sep 25, 2016
• $162,360,695

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 12 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• 12-Track Digital Sound
• IMAX 6-Track
• Dolby Surround 7.1
• Dolby Atmos

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‘the magnificent seven’: film review | tiff 2016.

Antoine Fuqua's Toronto opener stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke in a revisionist take on 1960's 'Magnificent Seven,' about a band of loners who defend a village from an outlaw gang.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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The big difference between the new version of The Magnificent Seven and the revered 1960 feature is the ethnic background of the main characters. The titular seven in director Antoine Fuqua’s take are a diverse bunch, while the ruthless villain of the piece is no longer a Mexican bandito but, instead, a cutthroat white capitalist. Other than the revisionist casting, however, nothing particularly original or fresh has been injected into this competently made, violent but uningratiating remake of the star-studded John Sturges Western, which itself was a redo of Akira Kurosawa’s imperishable 1954 classic, Seven Samurai.

This efficient but uninspired third teaming of Denzel Washington and Fuqua looks to be a solid box-office performer upon its late September release.

Release date: Sep 23, 2016

The premise is as sturdy as they come, one that, no matter what the specific cultural context, is universally appealing: A defenseless village comes under repeated attack by an outlaw gang until a small band of mercenary loners pulls together to fight the bad guys off. Significantly adding to the pleasure of seeing the marauders get their just deserts are the tough, nothing-to-lose personalities of the band of well-armed guardians, which, in the 1960 version, was led by Yul Brynner and prominently featured the little-known Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn.

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This time out, it would seem that ethnic variety was the guiding principle more than anything else, the obvious irony being that it’s now a rainbow coalition of misfits defending an all-white town against all-white villains way out west in 1879. One needs to take this fantasy for what it says about contemporary culture rather than for anything remotely relevant historically, and there are certainly small kicks to be had watching an Asian warrior fling his sharp knives at unsuspecting baddies , the Native American take aim with his arrows and no one on the side of righteousness seeming to ever miss a shot.

Unfortunately, these new elements introduced by Fuqua and screenwriters Nic Pizzolatto ( True Detective ) and Richard Wenk are, not to coin a phrase, just skin-deep. Theoretically, recasting the makeup of the gang created a real opportunity to provide a small taste of the past experiences of such diverse men on the frontier — a chance, via a few short monologues or running commentaries, to hear some tales, tall or otherwise, of the Old West’s renegades and outcasts. The 1960 edition (which, curiously, was not a great commercial success in the U.S. but was huge overseas, enough so to spark sequels) got by on the taciturn cool of its cast; this one could have distinguished itself by evoking some human and historical truths. It presents itself as culturally relevant, then does little with it, much less than did the more radically revisionist Django Unchained .

But the film’s worst blunder lies in making the villain so one-dimensionally sick. Peter Sarsgaard plays mining baron Bartholomew Bogue , who, with his well-armed goons, kills whomever he wants while demanding that the citizens of little Rose Creek sell their gold-laden property to him at a fraction of its worth. Just for kicks, he burns down the local church as a parting gesture while promising to return soon.

Critic's Notebook: Toronto, Telluride and Venice Film Fests Promise Riches After Cruel Summer

When bright-toothed, black-clad Sam Chisolm (Washington) turns up in town, he gets the not-unexpected “What the hell is he doing here?” remarks from the local good ol ‘ boys at the saloon. He soon turns that attitude around, but even while insisting, “I’m not for sale,” Sam begins gathering societal misfits around him who might, for fun and possible profit, be willing to take on the bad boys on behalf of the helpless, most prominently represented by recently widowed redhead Emma (Haley Bennett).

In short order, Sam has filled out his lineup card of talented players. They number Josh Faraday ( Chris Pratt ), a professional gambler savvy with explosives; Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke ), a Southern marksman, aka the Angel of Death; Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio ), an old mountain man; Billy Rocks ( Byung-hun Lee), a Korean who can fling those blades; Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo ), an outlaw by trade; and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier ), a native warrior so elaborately painted, coiffed and adorned that he looks ready to join a modern Village People.

Before the inevitable showdown with the bad guys, there’s plenty of time to get to know these misfits a bit better. Unfortunately, Fuqua, Pizzolatto and Wenk stick to pretty stock exchanges and filler between isolated bits of action instead of inquiring into illuminating nooks and crannies of their characters. For example, D’Onofrio’s girth, red face and bushy beard remind of nothing so much as Shakespeare’s Falstaff , and it might have been great to hear the fuzzy buzzard go on about a past exploit or two, real and/or imagined — or to listen to Hawke’s old Confederate tell a Civil War story, or know something about how Billy Rocks and Red Harvest ended up outside their own cultures. And certainly Sam has a tale or two to tell about his experiences as a black man roaming the West trying to carve out a living.

But, no, we scarcely get to know these guys at all. We’re stuck with the filmmakers trying to come up with one way or another to inject some violence into the proceedings every 10 minutes or so while waiting for Bogue and his goons to show up to take possession of the town.

The eventual showdown bears more the contours of an actual battle than it does in the Sturges version of 56 years ago; the Seven have fashioned a bunch of surprises for the invaders — trenches, traps and so on — while, for their part, the demented capitalists have brought along a Gatling gun to mow down as many damnable holdouts as possible. Except for the fact that virtually every shot, chop or stab the good guys make hits its mark to make the bad guys quickly drop like toy soldiers, the climactic showdown delivers what it needs to action-wise, leading to a satisfactory wrap-up.

The downside of the last stretch, however, is that Sarsgaard’s villain cuts a figure more ridiculous than chilling. He shows no intelligence, only ruthlessness. His eyes are moist and heavily lidded, as if he were on drugs, although nothing like this is referenced. And he seems ill-equipped to command a military operation. Which might be part of the point, given the outcome.

The cast is OK and does its job, but no more; without question, several, if not all, of the actors in the Sturges film oozed far more attitude, charisma and sense of savvy. As it is, there’s a a bit too strong a whiff of modern guys grooving on getting in the saddle and whipping out their weapons.

While mostly shot in Louisiana, the film offers enough rocky vistas here and there to make the Far West setting convincing. Composer James Horner died before finishing the score, which was accomplished by his friend Simon Franglen . An eyebrow-raising and ear-perking moment occurs at the end, when the opening strains of Elmer Bernstein’s eternal score for the 1960 version blast from the soundtrack. For some, this will provide an all-too-vivid reminder of a film that’s better than the one they’ve just seen.

Distributor: Columbia Pictures Production companies: MGM, Columbia Pictures, Pin High, Escape Artists, Fuqua Films Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke , Vincent D’Onofrio , Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia Rulfo , Martin Sensmeier , Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard , Luke Grimes, Matt Bomer Director: Antoine Fuqua Screenwriters: Nic Pizzolatto , Richard Wenk , based on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa , Shinobu Hashimoto , Hideo Oguni Producers: Roger Birnbaum , Todd Black Executive producers: Walter Mirisch , Antoine Fuqua, Bruce Berman, Ben Waisbren Director of photography: Mauro Fiore Production designer: Derek R. Hill Costume designer: Sharen Davis Editor: John Refoua Music: James Horner, Simon Franglen Casting: Mary Vernieu , Lindsay Graham

Rated R, 132 minutes

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The Magnificent Seven Reviews

A solid remake with an excellent cast

Full Review | Aug 7, 2023

It’s an action romp, and Denzel and company pull it off nicely.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2022

This is a narrow-minded, subtly mean-spirited remake.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 11, 2022

The Magnificent Seven makes all the right noises, but misses its target.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 18, 2022

The action scenes are well-staged if deeply impersonal - in fact, much of the film feels rote and mechanical, less a vibrant throwback to vintage Westerns and more a marketing campaign in search of meaning.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 18, 2021

A safe, by-the-numbers remake of two classics designed to make money.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 23, 2021

Could be leaner and well, maybe not meaner - I would not be surprised if it had the highest body count in a western eve r- but tighter.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2021

The film is little more than a few suspenseful shootouts and a bevy of humorous one-liners.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 5, 2020

With popcorn in hand and expectations in check, The Magnificent Seven is here for you to enjoy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 15, 2020

A certain something is missing here, and it could have something to do with the questionable magnificence of some of the title characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 31, 2020

As a classic, Spaghetti-style western, it really works. The actors and the action make it an exciting journey, no matter the plot's small faults.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2020

It doesn't bring anything new to the formula, but it doesn't try to, and that's fine.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 2, 2020

What the movie lacks in edge, it mostly makes up for in energy and chemistry among the band of mercenaries, and that's just enough to give it a modest recommendation.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2020

Over all, The Magnificent Seven is everything it was required to be. I'd say it's exactly as good as the prior incarnation, and takes enough liberties with the details to merit its own existence.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2020

The Magnificent Seven is exactly that. If you're looking for a fun time out at the movies, you'll get that. I'm just not sure you'll remember much afterward.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

Ultimately, it's the reinvigorated Denzel Washington that makes this worthwhile, if not essential, viewing.

Full Review | Jan 14, 2020

On the downside, it's an uneven film. Most of the secondary characters lack depth.

Full Review | Oct 9, 2019

The Magnificent Seven is an entertaining film with a mix of action, drama, and comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 25, 2019

Through successive rounds of whitewashing, one of the great works of cinema has been transformed into a bland, brainless multiplex shoot-em-up.

Full Review | Sep 16, 2019

Diverting action set-pieces with a mostly great cast with not nearly enough to do collectively delivers a fairly watchable rainy day outing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 26, 2019