What do you get when you put Denzel Washington at the head of a staggeringly talented cast of cowboy misfits hell-bent on reclaiming a tiny town they’ve no connection to? Movie gold.
Denzel plays Chisolm, a state-sanctioned bounty hunter with a dark and tragic past. When young widow Emma Cullen (played with a hellion streak by Hayley Bennett) begs for help, Chisolm finds himself drawn into the chaos. A sadistic mining baron with a love of hired guns has stolen Emma’s land – along with the rest of the town – and gunned her husband down for daring to speak out.
Emma isn’t a damsel waiting for salvation, so much as a furious woman out for revenge. But reclaiming the town will require more than a vengeful widow and a bounty hunter: to save Rose Creek will take a gloriously eclectic band of gunslingers too reckless to give in to the insurmountable odds. And Chisolm knows just the men to ask.
‘The Magnificent Seven’ is the sort of cowboy movie that even the most Western-hating moviegoer can’t help but enjoy. Chris Pratt is effervescent as the smart-assed, booze-loving gunslinger Josh Farraday: his facial expressions alone are worth the cost of admission. But each member of the cast brings something dynamic and captivating to their role. It’s actually hard to decide on a favourite character, let alone singling an actor out for attention.
In fact, it’s hard to settle on a single element to showcase for praise. There’s a culturally diverse cast of characters, one that hasn’t been whitewashed in the casting process. That’s actually far rarer than you’d think. Though there aren’t many female characters with speaking lines – which is a pain, but understandable given the plot – the heroine of the day isn’t a damsel throwing herself at the men trying to save her town.
Instead, she’s just as snarky and just as likely to raise merry hell as her team mates. There’s even elements exploring PTSD and the aftermath of war, rather than just making sure every gunslinger is a perfectly perfect hero. The plot is emotional without being cloying or depressing, and they’ve managed to keep the humour up without compromising the dramatic elements.
‘The Magnificent Seven’ is, let’s be honest, magnificent in its ridiculousness. Without falling into parody, or making a mockery of the important themes the movie explores, it manages to poke the best kind of fun at the genre and its overworked tropes. And if you love gun fights and random violence, you’re in for a treat. There’s gun tricks aplenty and violence galore. If there’s no footage of the cast doing gun tricks in the DVD extras, I’m going to be disappointed.
There are elements that don’t translate into the modern world overly well: it’s hard not to wince at the casual racism of the era, but a sanitised version of the Wild West really wouldn’t have worked. It’s in those unflinching reminders of the darker side of the era that we see why this group is so important: each man (and woman) is, in their own way, an outsider to the sort of community they’re trying to save.
If you’re a fan of rag-tag groups of hell-raisers fighting the good fight (or Westerns, or comedy, or action), ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is a must-see.
★★★★1/2
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‘The Magnificent Seven’ is released nationally 29 September.
