The Magnificent Seven is a western directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Ethan Hawke. The movie is a remake of a 1960 western of the same name, which itself is an adaptation of a revered Japanese film The Seven Samurai. I confess I have not actually seen either of those prior films, and maybe that makes me the wrong person to review this update. Or perhaps, since the choice to “remake” a film 56 years later represents a conscious decision to retell a story for a new audience, being a part of that new audience may not be such a handicap.
For this new adaptation, they brought a few veteran actors (Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D’Onofrio), added in a bankable star approaching his peak bankability (Chris Pratt), and the requisite up-and-comers (Byung Hun-Lee, Manuel Garcia Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier) to round out their title-mandated “7.” There are some really good performances here – Denzel is doing classic Denzel (no complaints), Ethan Hawke continues to make the case that he’s one of the best actors alive, and Manuel Garcia Rulfo out-charismas Chris Pratt (no easy task).
Others give very odd performances – D’Onofrio’s Jack Horne sometimes gets laughs for the wrong reasons, and Chris Pratt’s character can’t seem to decide whether he’s Andy Dwyer or Star-Lord thrust into the 1800’s. (A problem with the script as much as his performance, I think.) Apart from the 7, Peter Sarsgaard is plenty villainous as the wealthy marauder who threatens the town, and Haley Bennett is quietly brilliant as the widow seeking justice who reaches out for help and is granted it by the Magnificent Seven. The movie is a bit long, but it maintains excitement and thrills. It’s the most blockbustery western I’ve seen in my lifetime.
What leads a studio or a director or writer to retell a story for a new audience? This type of decision is usually made either because the storytellers want their audience to hear and see this story anew, or, more cynically, they want a new generation’s money. I think it’s best to at least assume the best intentions of the filmmakers, especially when you’re critiquing their work. Let’s assume this is not a cash-grab but that the filmmakers want to retell this story for this generation.
One might do this because the story still needs to be heard. When the series Roots was being remade this year, star Lavar Burton of the original series said this: “Human beings have remarkably short memories, and so it is essential that we continually remind ourselves.” Another option is re-appropriating a story for a new reason. For example, The Crucible, a story about the Salem Witch trials, was written as an allegory for McCarthyisn, but has been remade several times over to serve as an allegory for “witch-hunts” of every era.
The question becomes, then, is this a story this generation needs to hear? Is the story worth retelling? To me, a story about retributive justice seems out of place today, or it should. At the very least it’s calloused, in light of the world we actually live in. Perhaps all the videos we’ve seen this year of unarmed black men killed by police, or all the stories we’ve read about police officers being killed, or the news reports we’ve been shown of terrorist attacks and drones strikes and Syrian children caught in the crossfire of someone else’s war – perhaps all of this is just overwhelming.
At the risk of taking the movie too seriously, do we really need another run-of-the-mill western right now? At its heart, this is a paint-by-numbers classic western – an attempt to glamorize the “good-old-days,” when men were men and they solved conflicts by killing each other, but luckily the good guys always won. This movie wants us to look at that world and marvel at its heroes – though they do make personal sacrifices and have their own pathos, they mercilessly contribute to the body count of the film at an equal or higher rate than the villains.
It’s been said again and again, but it seems nearly impossible to make a western since Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. That film served as a eulogy to the genre, infusing every death with meaning and grief, and showing us that perhaps that bygone era should remain gone by. Westerns ever since have suffered from an inability to explain why the violent and morally complicated world of the 21st century should draw any wisdom from the world where the fastest person with a gun sets the moral standards for everyone else. That world represents some of our worst impulses. Better westerns take us to that place to expose these flaws in our humanity. Poor westerns take us back there to wow us and pander to our weaknesses. Sadly, I think The Magnificent Seven is another example of the latter. This is not Roots. This is not The Crucible. This story’s morality, judging it only by this particular incarnation, hits the wrong notes in 2016. It might be different if it were samurai swords rather than guns, an incentive for me to finally watch Seven Samurai, but to me this film takes us back to a place I’d rather not go.
