The Magnificent Seven, in many ways, is the perfect American western insofar that it takes its mythical (and borrowed) premise and infuses it with enough honor, camaraderie and sacrifice to make Akira Kurosawa proud. Watching Yul Brynner assemble his crew of assorted gunslingers and various fuck ups in order to protect a peaceful village from whooping bandits has been required viewing the very second Elmer Bernstein’s hummable score first blared out from cinema speakers back in the 60’s.
The sequels to this timeless classic, however, have been something of another story. Bogged down with samey plots (can’t any of these farmers fend for themselves?), forgettable ensembles and a changing roster of actors portraying the infinitely resourceful and impressively persuasive Chris Adams, all subsequent attempts to catch lightning in a bottle has resulted in follow ups that, at best are decent and at worst, as forgettable as the lunch you had six weekends ago last tuesday. Could one final ride change all that?
Chris Adams, saviour of all lowly villagers on the other side of the Mexican border, has finally settled down and given up the bounty hunter/gun for hire business to be the marshal of a small town in Arizona territory. Newly married and seemingly content, Chris is still something of a stern lawman, happy to condemn Shelly, a restless young tearaway arrested for robbery, to the horrors of a Tucson prison without giving him the benefit to learn from his stupidity.
Into his life comes newspaper man Noah Forbes who hopes to make some much needed cash by telling Chris’ remarkable life story, but before they can even begin, an old buddy from the Marshal’s past drops by to visit in the form of Jim McKay. It seems that Jim has a very familiar problem he needs help with, as the tyrannical bandit known as De Toro has set his sights on raiding the border town know as Magdalena with murderous gusto, but Chris, having gone down this road numerous times before, refuses.
However, fate seems dead set to screw up Chris’ day as, in a rate moment of empathy, he pardons young Shelly only for him to go and immediately rob a bank with his buddies and takes Adams’ wife hostage after the lawman gets plugged in the shoulder. Healing up remarkably fast and with Noah in tow, Chris goes after his wife’s abductors only to find tragedy and death as he stumbles on the mangled aftermath of Jim McKay’s attempt at protecting Magdalena which boasts a pile of dead men and a handful of raped women. Vowing to finish his friend’s job, Chris heads to that Tuscon prison, he picks a quintet of criminals (most of whom he has history with) to aid him and Noah to vanquish De Toro once and for all. However, this time, most of Adams’ team mates hate his guts with a passion, can he trust them to watch his back instead of putting a bullet in it?
The Magnificent Seven Ride! is a curious beast. It still follows the same, basic pattern as the previous movies in the series (bad guy menaces town, Adams forms a team, everything is resolved in a huge climactic shootout that takes out roughly over 50% of the seven), but it also installs some fairly divisive changes into the mix when it comes to tone. The first thing you notice about this fourth film in a series that never really took off is that director George McCowan has a far harsher and darker storyline than the other entries had up to this point which was presumably installed to bring it in line with the harder edged 70’s aesthetic happening at the time. Now, that’s not to say that the movie reaches the nihilistic heights of such famously vicious westerns as The Wild Bunch, or Bone Tomahawk, but this is a Magnificent Seven movie for heaven’s sake, did the movie really need quite so many rapes? Yes, they all mercifully happen off screen, but the movie’s usage of its female folk is somewhat noticeably callous considering it’s usually bookend by that notoriously perky theme tune. Take Chris’ wife Arrila, for example, who seemingly is solely a cruel device needed to get our hero back in the game who (spoiler warning) is raped and murdered by Shelly and his gang (which includes a young Gary Busey who weirdly looks and sounds an awful lot like T.J. Miller) and discarded like the clumsy plot device she obviously is. With news that the young criminal has likely joined with De Toro’s gang, Chris finally gets his head in the game only to find that the wannabe bandit has already bought the bullet at the hands of Jim McKay’s ill-fated resistance, which makes the abrupt exit of Arrila all the more spiteful. Elsewhere, we find that the surviving members of Magdalena have also been thoroughly been sexually assaulted, but that doesn’t stop the movie trying to pair these recently bereaved and traumatised women off with various members of the Seven from almost the second they arrived. I’ll fully concede that back in the notoriously harsh, old west, finding a steady provider no matter what your circumstances may be was vital, but it still seems out of place in a franchise as outwardly good-natured as this.
Maybe the shift in tone was to accommodate that fact that the more hard-edged, notril flaring of Lee Van Cleef had been brought in to allow previous Chris Adams, George Kennedy (himself replacing Yul Brynner), to tag out. Taken in this respect, the added layers of grit make more thematic sense considering Brynner’s Adams was too honorable for such a tone and Kennedy’s was too amiable and its here where we finally get to the mor intriguing gristle in this overcooked steak of a movie when the film plays it’s most interesting card: the fact that the titular Seven almost all drafted into service from prison.
Chris Adams has recruited dudes from jail before, but the deal was always on the up and up, here he cons and tricks a clutch of his old enemies into signing up to this suicide mission while lying to them about the particulars as he maneuvers them to the top of De Toro’s shit list to stop the switching sides. Brynner would have never tried something so low down and dirty, but then this isn’t his Magnificent Seven and Van Cleef has always looked like he’d kill his own grandmother to get his own way. Needless to say, it succeeds in adding a whole new layer of threat to an established formula and even though it feels decidedly out of place, I have to admit it works, by gum.
However, thwarting the themes of trust and the cruel heroism that Van Cleef employs is the fact that some of the characterizations are thinner than a government mule with the villainous De Toro barely receiving a dozen close ups, let alone any chance to truly make his sadistic mark.
Despite other reviews claiming otherwise, I would argue that this is one of the better Magnificent Seven sequels purely for the sometimes distasteful risks it takes with the material, but, much like a bowie knife used on a screaming bandit, it often cuts both ways…
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