In reality, though, Fuqua assembled his diverse cast-comprising Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, and Haley Bennett-for a more meaningful reason. “Its jokes fall flat, its stars have little chemistry, and Fuqua seems impatient to get to the next set piece rather than invest in his characters.The only question he raises that’s worth considering is why watch this vastly inferior remake when the 1960 version and Akira Kurosawa’s (Seven Samurai) are easily available?” “It wasn’t to make a statement”, Fuqua said. We don’t talk about it because you guys [the media] talk about it.
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No one who saw Denzel Washington walk through the ‘hood in Antoine Fuqua’s “Training Day” will ever forget his menacing, charismatic gait. “If it because (it is) a gunslinger or is it because of the colour of his skin?’ So we’ll let the audience decide”.
“I just wanted to see Denzel Washington on a horse”, he said at a news conference. “Instead of trying not to do what someone else did”. This time around, it’s the town of Rose Krick that’s in trouble, as it’s being taken over by an industrialist named Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) who has overpowered the town by buying off the sheriff and killing any man who gets in his way. The film does correlate with the real world too, to make for a distinctly perennial tale, of a defenceless area being overtaken by a tyrant, a sad state of affairs which occurs all over the world.
Fuqua claims that the film plays homage to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Likewise, you’re unlikely to forget Washington’s conflicted turn as a bounty hunter who grows a conscience in “The Magnificent Seven“, a remake by Fuqua that feels – for once – like Hollywood has gone color blind.
The Magnificent Seven also embodies a lot of humour missing from some of the classic Hollywood westerns. “I was just identifying my heroes, John Wayne and those guys”.
“Westerns have always spoken directly to what is going on in present day America even though it’s dealing with its history”, Toronto film festival co-director Piers Handling told AFP.
“The world was more different [when they made the first Magnificent Seven]”, explained Fuqua.
Director Antoine Fuqua brings his modern vision to a classic story in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures’ and Columbia Pictures’ THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, in theaters September 23rd.
Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian gave the movie three stars in his review, calling it “strenuously-topical”. Before the Thursday afternoon press screening, a friend jokingly wondered if any of the seven would die at the end, thus endangering Sony’s hopes of a full-blown franchise (“The Magnificent Eight”, “The Magnificent Nine”, etc.).
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The problem is that the runup to the final showdown, despite occasional one-line zingers from Washington, or “oh, that’s evil” closeups of Sarsgaard’s sleepy eyes, includes a great deal of waiting around for anything to happen.
