The Magnificent Seven (1960)

People are voting emotionally.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I saw this film umpteenth number of times in the late 80s n early 90s on a VHS. Revisited it recently on a DVD after watching the remake (Denzel Washington one). Well this movie itself is a western remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. As a fan of western films n being a big fan of Mcqueen, i enjoyed it more than Seven Samurai. The film is an engaging n adventurous western, awesomely directed by John Sturges. The story is simple, poor farmers hire seven gunslingers to protect them from a small army of bandits.Yul Brynner is full of attitude n terrific as the leader of the seven. Steve McQueen really shines as the right-hand man. Charlie Bronson in his leanest physique wearing a stylish full sleeves tshirt n denim shirt. James Coburn is cool but very deadly with his knife than guns. His body language speaking louder than any of his lines. Robert Vaughn as the man who loves to live life king size n who's fightin his inner demons. Brad Dexter is the big muscular guy with a good sense of humour. And then there is Eli Wallach as the bandit leader. Watch out for Wallach's statement on generosity. The film has a lot of great scenes involving the action and shootouts that is engaging to watch. The Magnificent Seven is not complete without mentioning Elmer Bernstein's legendary score.

Having to endure the continuous pillaging of their village by a gang of bandits led by a notorious outlaw named "Calvera" (Eli Wallach), three Mexican peasants go north to a town on the American side of the border to obtain some weapons to defend their village against him. However, upon talking to a gunman named "Chris Adams" (Yul Brynner) they are convinced to hire gunmen instead. Although they cannot afford to pay much Chris accepts the job and offers to recruit others as well. Soon he winds up with 6 good men and together they all toward the Mexican village and a confrontation with Calvera and his men. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film was a fine Westernized adaptation of "The Seven Samurai" produced back in 1954. Although all of the actors were highly competent, I especially liked the casting of Eli Wallach who used a good sense of humor to highlight a masterful performance. Be that as it may, I enjoyed this movie and have rated it accordingly. Above average.

The "group of guys" movie if that's what it's called (I don't know if it has an established term), is a type of genre film in which a group of relatively diverse characters band together either to solve a problem or commit a crime. They are sometimes recognizable with a number referring to the number of characters in the title but many do not include a number. Often, the "team" is made up of name actors. Recent offerings, most of which are of the heist variety, include "Ocean's 11", "Tower Heist", "The Italian Job", and "The Usual Suspects". Older ones include "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Great Escape". Often the characters are assembled by a "leader" character of sorts before the mission is carried out. One of the earliest which may have provided the prototype for all "group of guys" films is "The Magnificent Seven" with Yul Brynner as the "lead", similar to Danny Ocean of "Ocean's 11".The plot of "The Magnificent Seven" is not terribly original as far as these kinds of films are concerned, although it's not so much the plot but the characters and how they play out on screen. The story derives from Akira Kurosawa's "The Seventh Samuri" and MS is essentially the same story set in the Old West. It's main innovation, in addition to the "group of guys", may have been the beautiful on-location shooting in Mexico that makes the film as scenic as it is. Many films prior to The Magnificent Seven had been shot on-location with lots of studio scenes. (I wonder if they'll release a cleaned-up version of the original. The four "Magnificent Seven" films are available in a blu-ray set but they may simply be a straight transference from film to Blu-ray without much of a face-lift as the DVD appears to be.)In a small village in Mexico in the late 19th century, some humble farmers keep getting everything they've harvested ransacked by the old west equivalent of Al Capone, Calvera (Eli Wallach), and his merry band of banditos, the Mexican equivalent of the James-younger gang of around the same time. The villagers believe if they allow Calvera to continue pillaging, he'll never stop until the village becomes nothing more than a starved out ghost town. A small entourage rides to a US border town to buy guns. They stumble across an altercation with a visitor and some locals concerning the proper burial of a dead Native American. Two gunslingers (Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen) keep the peace, preventing the town from becoming like wooden Swiss cheese. The Mexican entourage impressed with what they saw, ask Brynner to help them with their "problem" back in Mexico.Brynner then begins assembling a group of gunslingers to combat Wallach and his group of sombrero-wearing thugs. Each character is introduced with a scene which tells us something about who the character is and their specialty in combat. This bringing-the-group-together sequence of scenes has become so prevalent in these films it's almost a cliché. In the recent Ocean's 11 remake, Clooney as Danny Ocean does the same thing. We see one of Ocean's potential recruits in one of their exploits before Ocean taps him to become part of the team. The same idea occurs in about the first third of The Magnificent Seven. Other notable character actors who fill out the "team" are James Colburn, Charles Bronson (who also played in "The Dirty Dozen"), and Robert Vaughn. Part of the plot which I assume was the idea behind the title "The Seventh Samuri" is that a young gunslinger Chico (Horst Werner Buchholz) wants to join the group but the older gunslingers believe he's a bit too green.The seven then come to the Mexican village to await the return of Wallach and company. We experience the typical "W"-shaped story arc where things are bad, they get better, before becoming intolerable again. The final denouement of "The Magnificent Seven" is a bit weak compared to the rest of the film. That said, it still holds up reasonably decently as one of the better westerns prior to the Eastwood Spaghetti westerns. Brynner and McQueen have few lines and they always seem to do better in films where they don't have too much to say. Their on-screen presence fills in where dialog is superfluous. It's still a classic of two genres: the Western and the "group of guys". Although I wouldn't exactly call it masterpiece filmmaking in the way some later westerns are, particularly "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" (2007).

Reviewed August 2010It did not pan out as how I expected it to be, rather was more entertaining. It follows a linear and typical western narrative about a bunch of peasants hiring a few guns to get rid of a bandit Calvera and his gang who thrive on the village for free supplies. The lead characters in Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and an ensemble of others are cast perfectly and each evokes a style that is subtle in presentation but looks very intentional in the viewers perspective. As it moves briskly on familiar ground for most of it's runtime, the twist in strategy by Calvera towards the end was very fresh and took me by surprise. It features very good action sequences for it's time and as an example I can think of one stunt where Chico pulls off a bandit from the horse and gets on the same horse during it's fall and rise. There was also effective use of dust to conclude most action scenes like falling off, a shot towards the camera or skidding to take cover etc. It's stylish, has an entertaining plot that features an interesting bad guy, though gets a bit melodramatic at times doesn't drag too long.