ReWatch: The Magnificent Seven

 2016, Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer) - Amazon

Ten years ago I wrote about my first watching. A decade used to seem like such a long time ago, but I have been in Toronto for over twenty years and I had what I considered an incredibly long and diverse life before that. I remember feeling middling about this adaptation of the 1970s western which was already an adaptation of the 1954 Kurosawa movie, Seven Samurai. I guess a decade has changed me, because this felt, this time, like exactly what I would want from this remake.

In one of the many alternate realities that I come from, Fuqua started his career with The Book of Eli and not The Replacement Killers. Westerns and PoAp have always had much in common and that Hughes Brothers movie was a pure PoAp western. And it starred Denzel, who came into contact with Fuqua for Training Day, and continued their relationship for many movies after. So, alternate reality or faulty memory -- you know what I will go with.

From the very beginning of this rewatch, I was settling into the things I like about westerns, especially the nods to the classics. The framing, often from low on the ground and behind a gunfighter, so we see his opponent ahead of him. The majestic landscapes as America in its youth was beautiful. A Lone Hero, dusty and weathered, good at his job but with a moral code, but still haunted by his past. I stated in my original writing that this was "just" a capable western, but for the rewatch that was exactly was I was looking for.

I was again disappointed in the lack of character given to Haley Bennett with her Emma Cullen character, the revenge drive impetus for the gathering of capable, violent men willing to kill & die for the point, and not exactly the money. She's no longer the alt-Bryce Dallas Howard in my mind, I having seen her in many things hence, but I didn't recall exactly how little agency she has here; we never learn anything about her and the only saving of grace is not having her immediately hookup with one of the horny gunfighters, despite Faraday's leering. 

Like the original, four of the men are killed in defense of the town, and honoured as heroes. Of the gathering of killers, only Chisolm strikes me as the properly "good" character -- he fought for the North and works as a bounty hunter, not a virtuous man, but chooses the side of Law. The rest are killers through and through, with maybe only Red Harvest being so lacking in background, we don't know if he is a killer or not. 

Properly great original movies get remakes and reboots. The Seven Samurai never got a "proper" remake, as in a Japanese ronin movie, but probably has more nods than just these two westerns and ... cough... Rebel Moon. I mean, there is the "Heart of Gold" episode of Firefly but that show being a space-western, you could say, once again its a nod to the original Magnificent Seven ? Now, has the original movie passed on so much so as to become a trope? There are plenty of raid movies where a group of specialists go on a suicidal but important mission, but that's not quite the same. Violent Men Defend Defenseless Villagers... I guess I should poke around on TV Tropes and see what their listing for "The Magnificent Seven Samurai" gives me.