Trailer Trashin’: Wild West Action in The Magnificent Seven Teaser Trailer
It’s almost the end of April, dear readers, and that means the start of the summer movie season is nearly upon us. This week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ examines the teaser trailer for director Antoine Fuqua’s upcoming remake of The Magnificent Seven.
Premise: With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the desperate townspeople employ protection from a motley crew of seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers, and hired guns – Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.
My take: The Magnificent Seven (1960) is considered one of the all-time classics of the western genre, and has influenced many subsequent stories about a group of people teaming up for a mission. Now we’re getting a remake of the film, brought to us by director Antoine Fuqua. The teaser for The Magnificent Seven is now out, and it looks like it could be pretty fun.
A film like this relies on the strength of its cast, and we’ve got a fun group of actors here. Denzel Washington, who previously worked with Antoine Fuqua in Training Day (2001) and The Equalizer (2014), plays bounty hunter Sam Chisolm, the leader of the seven. Chris Pratt plays Josh Farraday, described as “a gambler with a fondness for explosives.” Washington and Pratt are both great, and it should be fun to see them play off against each other. Although none of the characters here are the same as those in the original film, Sam and Josh do seem to be roughly analogous to the Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen characters from the original. The rest of the titular seven are Ethan Hawke as sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux, Vincent D’Onofrio as trapper Jack Horne, Byung-hun Lee as assassin Billy Rocks, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as outlaw Vasquez, and Martin Sensmeier as Comanche warrior Red Harvest. The main antagonist is Peter Sarsgaard as Batholomew Bogue, the industrialist who controls the town. The townswoman talking to Sam Chisolm at the beginning of the trailer is Haley Bennett as Emma Cullen, a widow who hires the seven to protect the town and avenge her husband. Other names in the cast include Matt Bomer, Cam Gigandet, and Vinnie Jones.
This teaser is mainly about selling the action of the film, which looks pretty cool. We’ve got six guns and rifles, we’ve got dudes on horseback, we’ve got things blowing up, and we’ve got a hand-cranked Gatling gun. My favorite single moment is probably Chris Pratt leaping through the air and firing his revolvers multiple times while airborne. And I like the song used here, a cover of “The House of the Rising Sun” by Heavy Young Heathens.
Yes, I know that we don’t need a remake of The Magnificent Seven. But not only was the original film a remake of Seven Samurai (1954), it also spawned three sequels and a television series, so we shouldn’t act like this new film will diminish the original just by existing. If this new film turns out to be the entertaining action-western this teaser suggests, that’s good enough for me. When The Magnificent Seven is released this September, I’m interested to see how it turns out.
ANTICIPATION: I don’t know about magnificent, but this looks like a lot of fun.
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Matin Sensmeier, Peter Sarsgaard, Haley Bennett, Matt Bomer, Luke Grimes, Sean Bridgers, Billy Slaughter, Cam Gigandet, and Vinnie Jones
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Writers: Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk, based on Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni
Timothy Monforton
