The Magnificent Seven

Director Antoine Fuqua gives John Sturges's classic an action injection for the 21st century. The premise is the same: seven hombres with deadly skills come to the aid of a community bothered by bad guys. Here, however, it's not Mexican peons and bandits, but a small town of settlers under siege from a vicious land baron (played with dead-eyed intensity by Peter Sarsgaard) and his army of mercenaries that forces Haley Bennett's tough young widow to find men with the right stuff. Joining forces are a black-clad gunslinger (Denzel Washington), a wise-ass gambler (Chris Pratt), a sharpshooter (Ethan Hawke), a knife-throwing assassin (Lee Byung-hun) and a burly tracker (Vincent D'Onofrio), wryly described as "a bear wearing people's clothes". Washington is his usual charismatic self and his scenes with Hawke (as a fellow Civil War veteran) provide much-needed substance. But there are big boots to fill. Never mind the fact that Sturges's film had a superstar cast in Brynner, McQueen, Coburn and co, the script was a belter awash with quotable lines and Elmer Bernstein's rousing score is one of Hollywood's best. Fuqua delivers the quick-fire gunplay and respects his source material; he just can't match the epic romanticism or magnificence of that enduring 1960 classic.