Guns of the Magnificent Seven · 1:32am Aug 10th, 2021
So after the bad time I had with the sequel to the classic film, Return of the Magnificent Seven, I decided to give the third in the series a try for some reason. I'm pleasantly surprised to say that I honestly had a good time with it.
This time around we have a fully new cast as Yul Brynner doesn't reprise his role as Chris, being replaced by George Kennedy. Now I've enjoyed Kennedy in his roles in "Tick, Tick, Tick" and "Cool Hand Luke" but this role for him just felt a bit off for me, but it's hard to top Brynner in the role and Kennedy does a good job with it. The other members of the seven are interesting this time around, unlike the previous "Return" and most everyone has a role to play, a good introduction and some form of development. Standouts have to be in my opinion Bernie Casey's Cassie, a former slave and his dynamic with Joe Don Baker's character Slater, an ex-Confederate with a gimp left arm as well as James Whitmore's Levi Morgan character and the fatherly relation he has with a young local boy named Emilio (who it turns out will become a significant figure in Mexican history some time later).
As for the story, a group of Mexican revolutionaries send one of their own, Maximilliano to bring guns and supplies to aid in freeing their leader, Quintero from the local Federales led by Colonel Diego, who in my opinion is miles above the previous antagonist Francisco Lorca. Instead of coming back with the guns, Max hires six gunmen as well as volunteering himself for the seventh spot to aid in freeing Quintero.
Now, the plot seemed a bit too familiar, with the corrupt Federales and outsiders coming to aid the local rebels to strike a blow against them but it is based on the real history of Mexico (Porfirio Díaz is the acting president at the time) so I can't nitpick it too much. And the Colonel is the ruthless officer type you'd expect, doing whatever it takes to preserve order and weed out the rebels at all costs.
In my last post for the previous film I complained that the odds were heavily stacked against them with the group wading into 200 men. Here they face the same odds but this time around they fight smart, freeing a group of workers and getting them armed to help, getting late aid from the rebels (Who overthrow their decadent leader to come to the rescue) as well as taking out small groups of the Federales before attacking their main headquarters and catching them completely off guard and use a heavy gamechanger to initially turn things in the Seven's favor. In that regard the final fight is much more palatable.
If their is any complaint from me it's that we still don't get ample time to spend with the characters despite the dynamics they have. We get much more and you do feel a connection with this cast much better but some characters like P.J., a gunmen suffering from tuberculosis (Sound familiar?) doesn't get nearly as much screen time as I felt he needed and he even gets a romance subplot that to me seemed rushed. And the aforementioned dynamic between Slater and Cassie could have done with a bit more building up. And we get Keno, a sly trickster who just seems like a discount Vin in my opinion (No disrespect to actor Monte Markham). The final fight is great but also felt too short for my liking and many of the seven fall in rather quick succession and with little to no fanfare, though again when it's near 30:1 odds I suppose you should imagine many of them would fall like dominos.
The only other thing I'll say is that they use the same musical score by Elmer Bernstein as the two previous films and it just doesn't fit here with some of the scenes. Maybe some original compositions would have help convey what was going on better.
All and all I enjoyed it. From the three films of that era I rank it a solid 2nd place under the original film.
Oh, interesting. I didn't even know that there was another Magnificent Seven movie, beyond the sequel you previously wrote about. Interesting... glad that you enjoyed this one more at any rate! ^_^