This is an Americanized remake of the 1954 classic Seven Samurai by Akira Kirosawa. You know what they say about remakes. They did shorten the runtime by like an hour and a half, so that does have a debilitatin’ effect here too. Still a decent Western, but despite it being shot in color, still pales to the original black & white film.
A small Mexican village, plagued by the Frito Bandito and his sizeable horde. Simple farmers, they can’t go up against that. What to do? The Elder says Guns! Shoot or Die! So, three farmers off to the border town to buy some guns. But plans change a bit, easier to hire a man WITH guns, who knows how to use em. Plenty of them drifting about. The pay sucks, but each gunslinger has his own reasons to join up, and soon a team of six is assembled. But Six isn’t a good prime number, so they begrudgingly make it seven! Perfect! The Odds suck though, and yeah, those farmers are a bunch of hayseeds. God love ‘em.
A decent cast assembled here with Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, a skinny James Coburn, and the totally-not-an-alien Yul Brynner. There’s a few decent insights into the cultural challenges and raystisms and such of the times, while looking pretty starkly at the life of a hired gun. It’s not glamorous and the pay usually sucks, but damn, they do get to wear some cool hats. It’s just a shame the one shitty character from the original kinda carries over here. Oh, the dramas of a young punk gunslinger!
This film seems to get a lot of praise, particularly the upbeat score? I mean it’s okay, but...comparatively speaking? The questionable Mexican acting and a pretty telegraphed script doesn’t do it any favors. But it was popular enough to spawn a few sequels, a television series, and a 2016 remake with Denzel Washington and Chris “Starlord” Pratt. It’s decent overall, a little odd it got so much attention, but the first of the next gunslinger wave known as Spaghetti Westerns that helped elevate the genre were still a few years off, so I guess people just liked to see their Westerns in color for a change here.
