The Magnificent Seven

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Magnificent Seven.  And Suicide Squad a bit)

I’m really confused by this film.  I’ve seen the trailer a few times in the cinema and it looked like wacky Western hijinks with wisecracking cowboys.  And it isn’t that.  That’s not the films fault, it’s an issue with the promotion, but as a result I’m still not sure what I think.  So let’s talk it out and see what conclusions we can round up.

The Magnificent Seven (2016) is a remake (The Magnificent Seven – 1960) of a remake (Seven Samurai – 1954), neither of which I have seen, so I’m not in a position to comment about how they all stack up against each other.  The basic premise is this:

Bad guy Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) wants to buy the land from the residents of Rose Creek so he can mine it for gold.  When they refuse, he kills a group of locals and tells those remaining that he will be back in three weeks where they can either leave, or he will kill them all.  Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), whose husband is one of the residents killed, sets about looking for someone who can help them (“I seek righteousness, as I should.  But I’ll take revenge.”) and happens upon Denzil Washington’s Sam Chisholm, a bounty hunter.  He is not particularly interested in her plight until she mentions Bogue’s name, and then he goes about assembling the eponymous Seven.

They come in the form of gambler Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), knife-thrower Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Comanche Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) and Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo).  The Seven try to train the town to defend themselves against Bogue’s imminent return.

Plus points:

The casting has rightly been noted as being remarkably diverse – a conscious decision on the part of director Antoine Fuqua, who noted that this was an attempt to more accurately depict historical reality ("There were a lot of black cowboys, a lot of Native Americans; Asians working on the railroads. The truth of the West is more modern than the movies have been.”)  It’s sad that this is a noteworthy point in 2016, but diversity in the media seems to be more like a tide moving in and out, rather than a fixed race to a fixed goal.  A discussion for another day.

Magnificent diversity

Diverse or not, they’re an intriguing bunch and I enjoyed spending time with them.  They’re introduced quickly and efficiently, without a lot of time being given over to heavy exposition (take note Suicide Squad) – we learn who these characters are by seeing it, rather than being told.  In fact, I’d go as far as to suggest that this is the film Suicide Squad could have been.  And by the end of the film, you know them all a little better.  But not loads.  Because you don’t need to. 

Notably, there are real consequences in this film.  There is real peril, from real guns.  Anyone can die, anyone can be harmed.  And the film doesn’t shy away from (warning: impending pun) pulling that trigger.  This fact offers a decent level of jeopardy and is very different from – for example – a superhero film, where people die because the plot says their time is up (despite the fact that they’ve just survived bombs, guns, falling off cliffs and being blasted into the sun).  It’s a Western.  Not everybody will make it out alive. 

Also, it’s a film that absolutely zips along.  A little over 2 hours, but feels like a much shorter amount of time, and crams a lot of efficient storytelling in.  Even as I type this, I’m aware of how easy it is to explain the plot.  It’s not overly complicated.  There’s something very pleasing about that, compared to, for example Batman vs Superman.  Explain me that plot in less than 200 words.  Dare you. 

Minus points:

Treatment of women.  For a cast so diverse, I half expected Haley Bennett to be one of the Seven.  She’s not.  She spends the entire film proving her worth, being as good as the men, driving the film.  She’s the reason that the Magnificent Seven are assembled, yet her role is muddled.  She actively asks to be counted amongst the men as someone who can shoot and fight, and is found in the midst of the action, yet is repeatedly and subtly told “no” – she is relegated to fetching food and drinks for the men when the plans are being discussed and drawn up, and after “Her Big Moment”, her gun (her gun.  Not one she’d borrowed or just randomly picked up.  The one we’ve seen her shooting with throughout) is firmly taken off her and given to an unnamed man for no reason that I understood.  She’s the only named woman in the entire film.

Emma - apparently not magnificent

And I’m confused by this because they seem to be such active choices by the filmmakers that I assumed that they were there for a reason and that the film was building to a point.  But it wasn’t.  So what was all that about?

The grey points in between:
The film is rated as a 12A.  And the trailer, as briefly mentioned, makes this film look as though it’s going to be a lot more fun, and a lot funnier.  It’s not.  There’s a lot of violence and a lot of death.  There’s a fair bit of blood.  I’m not sure about the 12A rating.  There seemed to be a lot of parents with kids in the screening I went to and I think they assumed the same thing I did.  But on the other hand, film ratings are handed out based on the frequency and strength of violence, language and sex, and this breaks down as such:

Sex: presence of prostitutes, rape alluded to and then directly mentioned.  Nothing sexual overtly seen.

Language: one use of the word “shit”.

Violence:  lots and lots.  But, in mitigation, they’re “clean” deaths (you get shot, you die pretty much) with no excessive or additional torture (by which I mean there’s no people being ripped apart by wild animals, or people having hot pokers being stuck in their eyes or suchlike).

So I kind of understand why it’s a 12A, but definitely an example of why parental discretion should be used in a 12A.  Parents take note.

Backstories and issues – there’s some “Issues” that come up in passing as the film progresses.  And the introduction of those issues feels natural, given that a bunch of strangers are all thrown together in a stressful situation.  However, some of those issues land well (for example, Robicheaux and PTSD) and others feel hackneyed and heavy handed (for example, Chisholm and revenge).  A bit mixed, which is a shame.

So, in conclusion, not exactly magnificent, and there’s not exactly seven of them.  But it’s enough that I intend to seek out the originals.