The Magnificent Seven fails to come close to its predecessors in terms of quality due to its soullessness.

Antoine Fuqua’s latest cowboy flick The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the 1960 western classic of the same name, which in turn was a reinterpretation of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece The Seven Samurai (1954).

Similar to its predecessors, The Magnificent Seven centers on seven battle-tested men who defend the livelihood of common townspeople against a powerful group of bandits.

Set in the small town of Rose Creek shortly after the American Civil War, bandit capitalist baron Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) tries to rob the residents of their lands to build a gold mining company.

Bogue is willing to shoot and kill residents who refuse to sell him their land at a very low price. He makes his point known when he and his mercenaries burn down the town’s church and kill several civilians.

As Bogue leaves for Sacramento on a business trip, he informs the townspeople he will return in three weeks and, by that time, they must agree to sell to him, otherwise there will be repercussions.

In desperation, the townspeople hire mercenaries to protect them from Bogue and his men. Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), whose husband was killed by Bogue, manages to persuade bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) to come to Rose Creek to help the residents.

On his way there, Chisolm hires six other men who are crazy enough to go to battle against hundreds of Bogue’s mercenaries.

These men are a gambler with quick hands on the trigger, Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt); tracker and Indian scalp collector Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio); Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier); and former confederate army sniper Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) along with his sidekick Billy Rocks (Lee Byung-hun).

At the beginning, the film seems promising when Bogue storms into a town meeting at the church before preaching about how the act against capitalists like him is an act against God’s will.

Great classic westerns have always had the ability to dissect contemporary American society through its contextual historical narratives.

Vengeance: Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) looks to avenge her husband's death with the help of Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), one of the men Chisolm recruits.

So what better way to present these issues than by taking on the post-civil war period in America — a time famously known as the Wild West, when guns and power literally took over the role of the law within civilian communities?

Bogue’s speech in the church glimpses into the great potential of The Magnificent Seven. It makes people think we might be watching a work that stands on par with Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, which brilliantly tells the story of America from inside a cabin filled with eight individuals from different backgrounds who hate each other.

However, after the speech, The Magnificent Seven falls into mediocrity. The over melodramatic scene that follows is the beginning of the movie’s downfall — from a potential classic to a mere gun blasting fiesta.

The gun fights and battle scenes, which are highly well-choreographed and shot, clutter the film and practically define the movie’s main problem: shallowness.

This is somewhat surprising considering that Fuqua is the same man who was responsible for films such as Training Day, which provides a profound discussion on morality and conscience, and The Equalizer, an intense action drama about redemption. Both films also featured Washington as the lead role and his characters were memorable and captivating.

Fuqua’s inability to provide a deeper narrative and strong characterizations should not have happened considering the palette of characters he had at his disposal.

All seven men, for example, obviously represent the diversity in American society: Chisolm is a freed African-American slave, Faraday is a descendant of an Irish immigrant, Horne is a redneck who likes to kill Indians, Vasquez is a Mexican who is wanted for murder and rape, Harvest is an indigenous American Indian and Robicheaux is a confederate vet who is not racist and befriends Rocks, a Chinese immigrant.

There are a ton of deep and interesting narratives that could have been told from this seemingly dysfunctional band of men, however, Fuqua seems to be more interested in putting them in battle action mode all the time.

When the men are not firing guns, Fuqua tries to add humor to make them relatable. However, most of the humor is either poorly executed or poorly timed, focusing mainly on shallow stereotype’s of each their different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, instead of something more gritty, witty and edgy.

There are instances when the movie tries to tell background stories of its main characters, but they are executed half-heartedly. Whenever a character opens up, such as when Horne tries to talk about his wife, the movie quickly shifts to loud noises and flying bullets.

It is also confusing and mood-killing to watch the seven men, who are supposedly anti-hero figures, have the good manners that belong to your typical all-American hero types. These men have done terrible deeds in their past, yet here they are helping townspeople all of the sudden like righteous and courteous gentlemen.

Why they sincerely want to help the townspeople has no explanation at all. In the previous The Magnificent Seven, the assimilation and emotional bonding of these men with the townspeople was properly presented that, when some of them died, the tragedy became impactful and relatable.

In the new The Magnificent Seven, however, we just could not care less whether or not they all die, as there is simply not enough time allocated for us to get to know them beyond their rugged and macho personas.

Despite the film’s poor execution, the main cast, particularly Washington, D’Onofrio and Hawke, gave standout performances. It is just painful to see a cast so full of talent and a potentially great western tale be treated so wrong.

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The Magnificent Seven

(Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 133 minutes)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Cast Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard