Ethan Hawke: Original ‘Magnificent Seven’ had ‘charm’ but was ‘not authentic’

The 1960 film was itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film Seven Samarai, but with a clever twist: It transposed that film’s sense of honor among thieves to the American West, to great effect.

As in the original, Fuqua’s remake of the film centers on a band of seven men who have volunteered to save a remote village from nefarious forces – in the case of the new film, a greedy industrialist mine owner.

The main character here is bounty hunter Sam Chisolm, played by Denzel Washington. The time: 1879. The town: Rose Creek, whose citizens are being ripped off and wiped out by the robber baron portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard, whose sweaty, venal performance would be twice.as effective if his. theatrical pauses were half as. long.

Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, Luke Grimes and Matt Bomer.

Character ace Vincent D’Onofrio has another scene-stealing role as a squeaky-voiced but lethal mountain trapper enlisted in the cause.

He calls on old pal Goodnight Robicheaux (Hawke) and his associate, Chinese fighter Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), and somehow persuades Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) and cowboy Santa Claus Jack Horne (D’Onofrio) to climb aboard, too.

That’s your seven, but in another nod to contemporary sensibilities, quick-study Emma becomes an expert sharpshooter herself (as well as wielding a surprising amount of cleavage under the circumstances). Working with his Equalizer and Training Day cinematographer Mauro Fiore, Fuqua creates a crisp and vibrantly colored palette, that doesn’t sacrifice the feel of grit and dirt that’s crucial to the western genre. “The Magnificent Seven” is fine as far as it goes, but – especially when the familiar strains of the 1960 theme song begin wafting over the final scenes – one can’t help feeling that it should have gone much further. As in the recent blockbuster Suicide Squad, there are just too many principal characters and the film can’t do justice to them all.

Because even though we’d all happily pay to see Washington ride into town to deliver hell to a bunch of cartoon villains, a film – even a western – can not simply exist as a one-trick pony. It presents itself as culturally relevant, then does little with it, much less than did the more radically revisionist Django Unchained. But with its aging A-list movie star sleepwalking through an instantly forgettable ensemble picture that rounds up seven badass outlaws (who rarely miss a shot) and pits them in a fight for good, the similarities to this summer’s DC Comics stinker outweigh whatever might have been transferable from the source material. But it removes the element of desperation from the story of the hired defenders of a small Western frontier town.

You could do worse than putting it all in the capable hands of Denzel Washington, with some help from Chris Pratt. The IMAX screen is primarily used to give the feel of classic CinemaScope and director of photography Mauro Fiore lovingly films the western town and fields with great care. “We’ve been through a lot together”.

For a western released in 2016, The Magnificent Seven is remarkably old fashioned. “I seek righteousness, as should we all”, Cullen explains to him in one of the film’s few serious moments. If you like your popcorn sprinkled with old-fashioned, good-guy gusto, it’s as rip-roaring a time that’s come along on horseback in years.