The Magnificent Seven was released in 2016, directed by Antoine Fuqua, and is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name. The film stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Peter Sarsgaard. The town of Rose Creek is taken over by businessman Bartholomew Bogue, who threatens to kill anyone who doesn’t leave or pay him to stay. A group of seven men of different backgrounds join each other in order to stop Bogue and his plans. 

     All the cast is great. The stands outs are Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt. Washington does an excellent job at making you root for his character. Peter Sarsgaard, as the movie’s villain, Bartholomew Bogue, is wonderfully wicked and slimy. It’s clear all the cast were having fun with these roles. 

     The script is really good. It does a great job at making you connect to certain members of the main seven. But it also does a really good job at not going too deep into all the characters so you can watch it as either a fun action movie, or a character driven movie.

     The writing cleverly lets you know more about each of the characters with small lines of dialogue that only allude to certain things. In the case of Washington’s character, the small moments eventually lead into the story, and it’s really good about how it pieces the moments together. 

     The staging of each scene is excellent as well. The action is well shot. The cinematography is beautiful, but there was one scene where the lighting kept changing on different people’s faces. There are some match to action issues and continuity errors as well.

     The Magnificent Seven is a great reminder of why Westerns were once the biggest films in the movie theater. 

[My grade for The Magnificent Seven is a B+]