Seven Samurai besides the remakes has been paid tributes in many a movie – Hollywood and Bollywood. And almost every one of them has been appreciated saying a lot for the original story that remains evergreen. The Magnificent Seven is yet another addition to the list and sure does the job well. 

Fuqua’s film, set in the 1870s, has a posse so breathtakingly multi-racial it would seem to turn genre convention on its head. Yet, the film never suggests that the white men among the seven had any problem taking orders from a black man, or that there was any friction between a Native American and a former Indian killer. It’s revisionist for revisionist’s sake—there’s no political charge in its challenging of genre conventions.

It isn’t that The Magnificent Seven is a bad film. It’s made quite competently, and with much deference to the original — or should I say, originals. But the Seven here aren’t just magnificent enough. Fuqua’s film is to the original what a Colt revolver is to the Gatling gun.