The Magnificent Seven (2016)

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Antoine Fuqua
    Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke,
    Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-Hun Lee, Haley Bennett,
    Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Peter Sarsgaard
Seven dudes with guns (and knives and arrows and hairpins and dynamite) take on a mercenary army under the command of an asshole millionaire played with unalloyed nastiness by Peter Sarsgaard. This might not match the artistry of its original source (Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai"), or the collective star power of the 1960 John Sturges film, but it's an exciting, action-packed, morally unambiguous western, a point in favor of the argument that not all remakes are a bad thing. Nobody had heard of a spaghetti western when Sturges made his "Magnificent Seven", and this version contains conspicuous references to "A Fistful of Dollars" and "High Plains Drifter", among others. Denzel Washington has the old Yul Brynner role, and he's gotta be the coolest cat on the frontier, an African-American paladin in an all-black getup on a shiny black horse. He's the leader, of course, but your attention keeps being diverted to the gang's other members, especially Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt and Byung-Hun Lee. That happens in the Sturges movie, too, with Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Steve McQueen. James Horner composed the musical score - his last - and Elmer Bernstein's iconic title theme from 1960 breaks out at the end, because, you know, you couldn't remake "The Magnificent Seven" without it, really.