Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

MOVIE REVIEW

The Magnificent Seven

Well, since Hollywood is incapable of coming up with any new ideas, it was inevitable that the western classic “The Magnificent 7” would eventually be remade. The original with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Eli Wallach is certainly one of the top 10 westerns ever. The new version is one of the top seven thousand westerns ever.

Before we get started, let me first note that of the entire “star” ensemble only one comes close to being able to ride a horse. The guys’ buttocks rarely touch the saddle as they constantly bump all over the place while pretending to be able to sit on a horse. It’s none of your business why I noticed the men’s buttocks. You could just see their riding coach telling each one to “hold the reins with one hand out like this, keeping the reins firm on the bit and then use the other hand to hold the rest of the reins off to the side.” There sits Denzel Washington like he’s on some Merry-Go-Round with one hand awkwardly trying to control the horse and the other awkwardly off to the side like he’s holding onto his wife’s purse. Can you spell “sissy-city-boy?”

Anyway, our epic stars the aforementioned Denzel Washington, who everybody likes as far as I can tell. He is probably the best looking and nicest of America’s three black actors; one of which is required to be in every movie now made. The other two are of course Samuel “Hell, I hate all white people” Jackson, and Laurence “tooth-gap” Fishburne; their respective nick-names precluding them from ever getting an Oscar. Damn this unjust society in which we live!

The film also stars Chris Pratt who rose to fame in “Guardians of the Galaxy;” quite possibly the best movie ever made from a comic book. However he also starred in the God-awful “Jurassic World” catastrophe so the jury is still out on him. His recent film “Passengers” is tilting the scales of justice towards the “guilty" side. The cast is rounded out with other mid or lower level “stars” some of which I actually recognized. There is also a woman added at the last minute of course so that the remake is not sexist like the original.

Okay, let’s cut to the chase. This diversity thing has run amok and is now simply a foolish distraction. I got no problem with Denzel being the lead in anything. Great actor. I got no problem with him being the lead in a western; we certainly had black cowboys back in the day. BUT, since there cannot now ever be any group in commercialdom or moviedom that does not have the appropriate proportions of all races, the remainder of the Mag7 includes a Korean playing a Chinese person, a half Eskimo-half Irishman playing a Comanche Native American, and some white guy playing a Mexican. Yes, because large numbers of deplorables voted for Trump and American didn’t really mean that all people are created equal ALL groups must now be diverse so we can be beaten out of our inherent racism.

Anyway again, the original 7 plot was that a small village in Mexico was being harassed and robbed by a gang of Mexican outlaws because we used to have gangs in Mexico that harassed and robbed villages. [Thank God we solved that problem!] The new 7 plot is the evil businessman baron having white slave labor in his gold mine, forcing farmers to sell their land for no apparent reason, shooting random farmers and their wives, and partially burning down the church by torching the entirely wood building which fortuitously only gets a bit charred because it must have been made from asbestos trees. See, we needed the church for the final scene but had previously burned it down so we have to accept some continuity flexibility; nevermind.

Of course there are a few problems here. If you are MINING gold out of holes in the mountain (i.e a mine) you are mining veins of gold and do not need the sluice boxes someone in the carpentry department made for the movie. If you are MINING gold from a mine you don’t want the neighboring FARM land because the gold is either in the MINE or it is in the streams where you sluice. I watch “Gold Rush” every week on Discovery Channel. Gold is not in the topsoil; it just isn’t. You don’t grab farm land to mine gold; you just don’t. Anyway, common sense aside, the “evil” baron thing has been overworked to the point where is just don’t work; like Joe Biden’s personal lie-detector machine. With this stupid set up our movie begins.

Dweezil Zapata, er Denzel is hired to help fight seven thousands bad guys and so he starts looking for six other guys to help him. In the original 7 Yul was going to fight a 30-40 man gang and tried to quickly get as many good guns as he could. Dweezil on the other hand seems to think 7 dudes with guns in holsters arranged to make a fast draw impossible are all that is needed. The first guy (Chris Prat-fall) is hired because, well, there is no reason he is hired. Dweez has no idea if he can shoot or do anything except drink. After Prat-fall steals the other poker players’ money he can’t pay to get his horse back because he is broke; two seemingly contrary things. Dweez buys the horse for him if he’ll come and get shot with him. Prat-fall then goes to get some southern Democrat/Confederate sharpshooter who just happens to have a buddy who is a Korean playing a Chinese. In the original 7 James Coburn in a test of speed bested a cowboy’s quick draw using his knife. The understandably upset cowboy disputed the results and a real fight ensued. Coburn’ knife draw again prevail and he killed the cowboy from 20 feet away. In the new 7, the Korean playing a Chinese out draws HIS GUN to beat a cowboy in a test of speed but when it turns ugly he drops his gun and then FACES THE COWBOY WITH ONLY HIS KNIFE and kills him from 100 feet. As all good people will attest, this new 7 version MAKES NO SENSE, and is reminiscent of Jerry Brown explaining why California gun laws have made inner cities safe.

Well, while this Mensa class is going on, Dweez goes to a cabin to meet a wanted man even though he has no idea where the guy would be. They exchange friendly repartee over a dead body (don’t ask) and agree that Dweez will ignore his duty as a lawman if the guy will come with him to kill lots of people. It’s like us hiring Afghan tribesmen to fight the Taliban. Off they go. Next we go to the cabin of some famous Indian hunter/scalper who is reportedly now dead, but returns at the exact right moment so he can walk right up to the still bragging killers and kill both of them even though they see him coming and have guns while he only has a pack of Milk Duds and an ugly hat. He is of course the “crazy” one of the group until the writers forgot this and then he was normal the rest of the movie.

Since the SWAC (Stop Whites at Any Cost) committee of Academy of Arts and Entertainment was not yet satisfied, we next camp out only to be awakened by a lone Comanche who looks more like Ferris Bueller than a Native American. He rides up on a horse painted with symbols similar to those on the wall of the old Stockton court house. At this point we don’t know if he can ride as they walked in and did not trot.

Now our tale takes place somewhere in or near California (“a three day ride to Sacramento”), but for some reason a Comanche from the Great Plains rides up, offers Dweez a deer liver and joins the club. No reason for any of this except perhaps the cable went out at the reservation; he just saunters up and joins. Somehow the Great Spirit knew these were “good” whites and so he should forget the slaughter of his entire people and help kill some worse white men. It’s like meeting a cool dude on the slopes and becoming life-long snowboarding bro’s. NOT ONCE DURING THE ENTIRE BLAND MOVIE does the life-long Indian hunter/scalper say anything disparaging to our Eskimo/Irish/Comanche. It’s as if Native Americans were just another pea in the American pod; you know, like people from Madagascar are everywhere you look. The southern Democrat likes the black guy, the Indian hunter likes the Eskimo/Irish/Comanche, everyone likes the Chinese but the white boy periodically makes fun of the Mexican, but only in jest; you know, just like it really was in 1880 California.

Okay, a woman (which I barely mentioned earlier) from the over-run town is the one who came and hired Dweezil and the Olios (look it up all you non-crossword types). She then takes our melting pot of races back to the town, periodically showing way too much cleavage for 1880. I must say it was not too much cleavage for 2016; it was just right. There are hints during the long ride at man’s baser urges, but she escapes the entire movie un-besmirched. That’s not the right word but you get the picture.

Once back to the town, our band of bothers quickly kill the twenty bad guys left by the evil baron while he was on vacation in Sacramento; “a three days ride,” downhill. We let one guy live to tell the tale. More correctly, so that we don’t give us enough time to prepare, we let the guy go so he can shame the evil baron into coming back ASAP; which is of course entirely against our interests. Makes sense in “idiots who can’t ride horses world.” In Angels Camp it seemed not well thought out.

Well, we prepare the townsfolk for battle, free the white slaves at the mine (where we steal the dynamite so necessary in every western) and secure the town. Now the only thing missing from the climactic battle is rolling balls of flaming hay and giant exploding bombs/pottery full of oil; like movie-makers now put in every big battle so the overwhelming enemy can be overwhelmed. Our evil baron appears (after a three days ride) with upwards of a hundred (maybe two) men who are either computer generated or can actually ride horses. Towards the town they gallop directly into the traps prepared for them. Earlier we were told “there is only ONE WAY into town, down this road” even though we can see time after time the town is in the middle of a large open area. Thus the bad guys cannot ride AROUND the pre-prepared fortifications, but must ride directly into the maw destruction! The maw opens and they are destroyed! Mawvalous!

But wait! After the 100-200 men are killed, the evil baron calmly has his last five men uncover the Gatling gun! They insert the 50 round magazine and proceed to fire 7 thousand rounds at the town. The gun is about 200 yards or more from the town and shoots about 2-3 rounds a second. As they shoot at our heroes, they move the barrels from left to right and back. Now, given the rate of fire, the distance to the target and the movement of the barrels, about one round would hit in every 500 square yards of town. However, THIS Gatling gun is more like our modern day ones and it sprays millions of rounds covering every foot of the town. No matter what the good guys hide behind, the Gatling gun finds them and pours hundreds of rounds around with mounds of loud sounds!

Well, since Prat-fall already has one bullet through his chest, in a scene harkening back to the stupidity of last year’s “Interstellar,” he climbs on a horse and charges the Gatling gun (can’t our sharpshooter just SHOOT the guys around the Gatling gun?). Although our racially tolerant southern Democrat and his Korean/Chinese buddy shoot all of the mysteriously appearing unkilled bad guys chasing him, Prat-fall still get a few more .45 cal bullets into his chestal region before falling off his horse mere feet from the rapid-fire dealer-of-death (the Gatling gun, not Fidel Castro) and the evil baron’s NOW last remaining henchmen. He is SHOT IN THE CHEST ONCE AGAIN, but still tries to light a cigarette in an heroic act of toughness. [FOOTNOTE: All through the movie our cast lights PRE-ROLLED cigarettes which may have been possible, but I’m pretty sure they all rolled their own back then; that’s as nevermind.]

One of the evil henchmen rises above the bounds of mortal failings and shows his true mettle by graciously lighting the cigarette for our dying hero; yes, eventually seven .45 cal rounds to the chest will slow down even the most admirable vigilante. But alas, like Republicans cooperating with Obama, no good deed goes unpunished and Prat-fall pulls out a lighted (lit?) stick of dynamite and KERFLUFFLE, or KABOOM or something; the bad guys are sploded and the Gatling gun is no more, like the fans of the Gatling Brothers last album.

Some minion of Voldemort (off camera) now creates out of nowhere TWO MORE “last remaining” henchmen and our evil baron now rides into the town with them assuming everyone else is now dead. Of course, shooting 150 rounds (we saw three clips) from a Gatling gun at 200 yards could not possibly have killed everyone, but he really wanted to take the town back today so he could get back to his vacation in Sacramento and watch the Kings lose another game.

Our final scene is our bow-legged, over-the-hill hero Dweezil besting the ezil baron and Dweez’ victory gloating in the still standing burned to the ground church. It turns out that our evil baron while in college did the very same nasty things during Rush week in Kansas as a pledge to De-Kappa-Tate and some of his victims were Dweez’ family. Our hero himself almost fell to some Frat prank; he reveals his neck showing the hangman noose scarring just like Clint Eastwood in that good western. While Dweez is gloating the evil baron pulls his hidden derringer and we think he shoots Dweez. Ho HO; the woman is Johnny-on-the-spot (Jenny?) and she kills evil baron instead of baron killing Dweez. Yeah. Subtle rejoicing with too few left to bury the hundreds of bodies.

Well, that’s about it. Most of our new 7 are dead but the three survivors; Dweez, Eskimo/Irish/Comanche dude and the white guy playing a Mexican ride off while the woman has a voice over with the catch phrase that their heroes were “MAGNIFICENT! “ Only then, after all this wasted film does the classic Magnificent 7 theme play in the background.

This was not the worst movie ever made by a long shot (see the latest Star Trek fiasco) but it can only be described as pretty much an insult to the original. Yul Brynner is turning over in the grave, or more correctly settling in his urn. *Snort* Why don’t they just remake Ben Hur for crying out loud; ha ha ha. What???????? You should only watch this movie if you are home alone for a week with mono and have exhausted every other form of entertainment and its either that or watching the Wahlburgers.