The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Magnificent Seven (2016)

There are a few similarities between the two movies called The Magnificent Seven, one made in 1960 and the new one that opened this weekend. They both tell stories of the American West where seven gunfighters are hired to protect defenseless villagers from marauding bad guys. But that's about it. There is remarkably very little similarity between these two movies. The only overlapping dialog that I can remember is a story that Steve McQueen tells in the original that Chris Pratt also tells in the new movie to explain their situation. A man jumps off a building and as he passes each floor, he is heard to say, "So far, so good, so far, so good." Besides, McQueen and Pratt, some of the others are obvious counterparts to the original cast. Denzel Washington is Yul Brynner, Ethan Hawke is a combination of Robert Vaughn and Brad Dexter, while the new Asian gunfighter played by Byung-hun Lee is James Coburn. They are both pretty Zen and like knives. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo would be Horst Buchholtz since they both play Mexicans. That leaves Charles Bronson and Vincent D'Onofrio as the last matchup. No comment.

The original movie is a remake of The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, which tells the story of seven Ronin, Samurai with no masters, who are hired to protect a small village from bandits. The 1960 The Magnificent Seven tells the same story with gunslingers hired to protect a small village in Mexico. The seven gunslingers, like the Ronin, are lost and out of work because the West is changing and becoming too civilized. When their characters are introduced, Bronson is chopping wood for his breakfast, and Robert Vaughan is in hiding out in a storeroom. The original has a bittersweet feeling that even as they are protecting the lives of the Mexican farmers, the Seven realize that they have given up any chance of such a normal life and can never experience it themselves. The new The Magnificent Seven isn't such a bad movie but it has nothing to do with The Seven Samurai. This new movie is a western about seven gunslingers hired to protect a town, but it is not The Magnificent Seven. They should have given it a different name. In the new movie, the Seven are all gainfully employed and if not happy, they are certainly not at the end of their strings.

It is impossible perhaps to compare any cast to Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, and Eli Wallach who plays the leader of the bandits. And no one moves like Brynner, Coburn, and McQueen, although Denzel Washington comes close. Chris Pratt is always good and Vincent D'Onofrio is always weird. Ethan Hawke is a bit overwrought as Goodnight Robicheaux. He is meant to be a Cajun but doesn't have the accent. His character bears the most resemblance to Vaughn's PTSD gunslinger although Brynner is referred to as "you old Cajun" once in the original.

This new movie was made in 2016, so the Seven are much more diverse. The original had 5 1/2 whites and 1 1/2 Hispanics (Bronson was supposed to be half Mexican and half Irish). The new Seven has one African-American, one Native-American, one Asian, one Mexican, and one Cajun. And although Horst Buchholtz's girlfriend was very feminist for 1890 Mexico in the original, the Seven are hired in the new movie by a gunslinging woman (Haley Bennett) who was widowed by the leader of the bad guys (Peter Sarsgaard).  Sarsgaard leads an army of 100 against the new Seven while Eli Wallach only has 40 banditos. I like Sarsgaard, but Wallach is much, much more entertaining and a smarter bad guy. Not much explanation or comment is made about this diverse group of gunfighters. D'Onofrio's character does hate Native Americans, and there is a scene where Washington is not welcome in a saloon, but they don't really try to deal with this important issue. It's a fantasy I guess. Take a look at the very entertaining western, Silverado, and Danny Glover's character for a much better look at race in the West.

At the end of the original The Magnificent Seven, most of the Seven are dead, along with the bad guys, and a few of the villagers, but life in the village goes on as before. In the new movie, the entire town including the church has been blown up and burned, and many of the townsfolk are dead. It's a holocaust. The end of this movie is more like Aleppo today than the old West. The new movie is watchable and it's always nice to see a Western, but it's a bit flat and without a memorable screenplay. There are lots of good lines in the original. And the new movie has nothing to compare to the early scene where Brynner and McQueen ride shotgun on a hearse. The most important thing missing from the new movie is the stirring and iconic soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein, although it does show up in the end credits. You don't even notice the soundtrack in the new movie. As you may have already guessed, I recommend watching the original 1960 The Magnificent Seven. It's available On Demand. If you've never seen it, you are in for a treat.