The Magnificent Seven
Published October 11, 2020
Film info
- Title The Magnificent Seven
- Director John Sturges
- Year 1960
- Run time 2hrs 8m
- Genres Western, Action, Adventure
- Tagline They were seven - and they fought like seven hundred
An American remake of Akira Kurasawa's Japanese classic The Seven Samurai. A bandit terrorises a small Mexican farming village each year. Several of the village elders send three of the farmers into the United States to search for gunmen to defend them. They end up with 7, each of whom comes for a different reason. They must prepare the town to repulse an army of over 100 bandits who will arrive wanting all of their food.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 4:37 | Shouldn’t matter how big your church is, should it. |
| 6:35 | “We have to have another discussion very soon.” Threatening. |
| 9:45 | “Learn. Or die.” Harsh but fair. |
| 12:11 | Define civilised. |
| 13:11 | “Never rode shotgun on a hearse before.” Totally just realised where riding shotgun comes from now. |
| 20:23 | Also just realised the Ed Harris / Yul Brynner / Man in Black connection in Westworld. |
| 27:25 | Steve McQueen’s little grumpy face is adorable. |
| 33:31 | It’s not a very good bet if you can’t tell who won. |
| 40:14 | Look at baby Robert Vaughn! Adorbz. |
| 46:06 | “They are afraid of rain. No rain. The summer may be too hot, the winter too cold.” |
| 58:08 | Hey, ye olde training montage! |
| 1:05:30 | Aw, it’s so nice that they gave their food to the kids. |
| 1:12:26 | “They won’t keep me out.” “They were built to keep you in.” |
| 1:18:07 | So on the one hand they’ve lost the element of surprise but on the other hand they’ve got a lot more guns. |
| 1:23:13 | “Hands sweat, mouth is dry.” |
| 1:31:47 | Ah, PTSD in the wild west, otherwise known as “losing your nerve”. |
| 1:44:39 | “You force them to make too many decisions.” Know that feeling. |
| 2:02:05 | Love their attitude is to just grab a stool and get stuck in. |
| 2:05:07 | So sad the magnificent seven becomes the magnificent three. |
Thoughts
I’ve seen this before a long, long time ago, to the point where I couldn’t really remember anything about it except Yul Brynner was in it. So it was almost new to me, and a lot of fun. It’s a good Western in that it’s not too slow paced, and the action is great but not too bloody. The mission is good, and the rag-tag collection of gunmen make for an interesting group.
I like that you get to know their individual motivations, even if you don’t quite know their full backstory. That makes it more meaningful when they get to the end of their story, however that turns out, and that’s impressive given that there are so many of them.
Rating: 4 / 5