Pretty Good

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Return of the Seven is the ill-advised and quite stupid sequel to the rather remarkable The Magnificent Seven. It begins at the newly liberated Mexican village from the first film; a place in which the tale of Eli Wallach's Calvera, and his banishment by that of those brave American cowboys whom pooled together to fight him off, well on the way to being..... how does the opening narration of Peter Jackson's first of three Lord of the Rings films put it? ".......passed down into legend. Legend into myth" - a tale of good triumphing over evil for the ages. Life has resumed for these people, they continue onward to a rousing score with their lifestyle of farming, agriculture and catholicism – nary saying nor doing anything out of turn and enjoying their freedom. But hold on, for the presence of a new foe rears up and chaos once again is brought to the settlement; a foe arriving on horseback with a vast army of others in the time that it takes for one wounded villager to amble their way back to the town so as to warn everyone. One man is willing to stand up to them, the fresh set of bandits' superiority in this regard firmly established as any signs of resistance is stomped out.Beaten and weary, some stragglers escape and make it to a nearby town looking for some kind of help. There, at a bullring, they find Yul Brynner's Chris Adams enjoying the intimate nature of a matador doing his thing, and the level-headed nature that is required to take on such a situation. Adams led the charge against Calvera in the first film with Steve McQueen's Vin (now replaced by Robert Fuller), but is here enjoying a retirement of sorts whilst living in the locale due to some health problems; thus, an image of the man as someone perhaps not up to what the peasants desire of him is inferred. Regardless, he accepts, and with that catalyst begins one of the dafter westerns one will probably ever see. Adams, in spite of who he is, clearly has some sort of role or status, of which is never confirmed, but sees him granted unprecedented access to a nearby jail housing some of the leaner, meaner criminals in the territories. Here, he tries to get them to help with this new set of bandits. It is an access spawning a notion so bizarre, one would assume the modern equivalent of it being the letting out of a group of Broadmoor inmates to help deal with a larger than desired local city-set anti-social problem.But why does Chris even stop at just seven to go up against the seven hundred? The cynical nature of the answer lies with the fact the film is an exercise in brand name filmmaking. The original was a film in which the desperate call went out to anyone wanting to aid the town, so we always felt numbers were going to be sparse and we enjoyed the ambiguity around some of them doing it out of their own kindness with some of the others purely for the cash; here, he has the freedom to choose and preplan. The bandits are led by Lorca (Fernández), a big man with an even bigger hat. Crucially, and in stark relation to Sturges' wondrous first film, the fresh set of bandits and their policies are initially kept in the dark; the film later revealing them to be a collection of men led by a man flitting from isolated village to isolated village gathering the men, but leaving the women, and forcing them to a set location so they may aid in the building of a monument in memory of members of Lorca's deceased family.We recall Calvera's politic on the village from Sturges' first; something that saw him take many crops, but still leave them with barely enough, and reiterate he'll offer protection - something which tore the villagers and forced them into an ethic corner upon which they deduced ridding themselves of him was the better course of action, something that came to fray them even more when bloodshed became more plentiful. Here, someone who would be entirely successful in his goal had he just been a little more courteous, is placed up against a number of nymphomaniacs; criminals and serial-killers inexplicably let loose form their cells under the watchful eye of Adams and charged with trying to stop the man. We dislike "The Seven" about as much as we sympathise for Lorca's plight, which isn't much, but there is still that sentiment.There is a small exchange between Adams and that of Chico, a villager, detailing the fact Adams never actually learnt his surname thus creating room for Adams' character to really know with whom he fights this time round, although it doesn't materialise. In spite of the crew being the menaces to society that they are, we anticipate an arc with room for some sort of redemptive element, but it does not come. We sense Lorca's scenes with his men would have been better in Spanish, and with subtitles, instead of in English; the peasants, when they speak to each other, for dozens of seconds at a time, speak in Spanish, but for these scenes there are no subtitles. The whole thing builds to a messy fight sequence, a finale in which hundreds are involved and yet nothing is chaotic enough to prevent Adams and Lorca successfully finding one another amidst the battlefield to engage in a showdown destined to end the proceedings, proceedings we really wanted to end long before they do and proceedings that exist for no other reason than The Magnificent Seven worked as well as it did and money was to be made from the demand.

It's not easy to ride on the footprints of the original "The Magnificent Seven", one of the best westerns ever made, masterfully directed by John Sturges and based on the work of art "Seven Samurai" ('54) by Akira Kurosawa. This sequel, released around 6 years later, can't even aspire as 'magnificent', but it's still an enjoyable western flick with hour and a half of pure classic escapism. Yul Brynner returns to the role of the leader of the pack, Chris Larabee Adams, this time recruiting Robert Fuller (fresh from the TV Shows: "Laramie" and "Wagon Train", playing here the Steve MacQueen's role of Vin Tannen); Julian Mateos (playing Horst Buchholz's role of Chico); Claude Atkins (from "Rio Bravo") as Frank; Portuguese actor Virgilio Teixeira as Luis Delgado; Sam Peckinpah's 'usual suspect', Warren Oates as Colbee and Jordan Christopher, in his screen debut, as Manuel. The plot is a rehash from the first film, with some interesting ideas thrown into it that could have produced a better movie if the budget was higher; the writing had been revised; the development, expanded and the directing, less pedestrian.6 years had passed and Chico is still living in the small village, working as a farmer with his wife Petra (Elisa Montés on Rosenda Monteros' role). One day, a crazy bandido named Lorca (Emilio Fernandez from "The Wild Bunch") and his army of one-hundred men, invade the village and kidnap all the male farmers to do slavery work on a 'villa', located in the middle of the desert, rebuilding a Church in homage to Lorcas's two dead sons. Petra begs Chris for help, and again with his 'second-in-command' Vin, they must recruit 5 more 'magnificent men' to rescue Chico and the poor villagers from Lorca's evil hands. Yul Brynner is always cool to follow, with his deep & imposing voice, catwalk moves, characteristic shaved head (since "The King and I") and his commanding presence that can lead a bunch of misfits gunslingers to do heroic feats, facing death to save a bunch of innocent peasants. Robert Fuller came from a background in television doing two western TV Shows (like McQueen in the first movie that came from "Wanted: Dead or Alive"), but Fuller isn't McQueen, neither Burt Kennedy is John Sturges and besides the lack of McQueen's on-screen presence and charisma, his character is too shallow and very low-profile for a second lead, also the directing and writing for his character didn't help him to impose. Warren Oates leaves a positive impression, his Colbee here reminds a lot of his future character in "The Wild Bunch", produced 3 years after this one; Claude Atkins is good as the troubled Frank, a man haunted by his past; Virgilio Teixeira delivers as a flamboyant & womanizer character, but he had too little to work with; Julian Mateos is more restrained playing Chico than the 'over-the-top' Horst Buchholz playing him in the original film and Jordan Christopher can't do much with only 5 or 6 lines in it, but his naive & well-meaning character became the heart of the movie. In short, "Return of the Seven" if compared with the vastly superior "The Magnificent Seven" is a major disappointment, especially back then when it was released, but at least it's much better than the two low budget follow-ups starring George Kennedy and Lee van Cleef playing the Chris Adams' role. Last, but not the least, the Elmer Bernstein's iconic orchestration in all its musical splendor is back, just for it, it's worth the viewing !!

Return of the Seven (AKA: Return of the Magnificent Seven), is the first sequel to the popular 1960 western, The Magnificent Seven. Directed by Burt Kennedy, the film sees Yul Brynner as the sole returnee from the first film as he reprises the role of Chris Adams. Joining Bryner are Robert Fuller, Warren Oates, Claude Akins, Jordan Christopher, and Julian Mateos. It's written by Larry Cohen, scored by Elmer Berstein (receiving an Academy Award nomination for his work) and Paul Vogel photographs it on location in Spain in De Luxe Technicolor.The uninspired story sees Chris re-team with Vin & Chico and a few other gun slinging types; to save another Mexican village from another despotic visionary. It's a colourful movie, in fact it looks tremendous in HD, if only the direction wasn't so poor as the actors sleep walk thru the plodding and cliché ridden plot. A plot that only serves as an excuse to hang a few fight sequences on; tho the last battle is a glorious spectacle of explosions and people falling to the ground as if felled by a tank. It was always a tough ask to follow such a well loved movie as John Sturges' Steve McQueen definer, but merely dressing up the same formula was never going to cut it. Rightly panned by the critics of the time, it remains a dud in spite of containing a line up of admirable character actors. 3.5/10

The original title always struck me as a rather overblown definition for a bunch of gun-toting saddle-tramps. Still; their screen presence was at least underscored by a top-quality group of actors to support Yul Brynner. Most were movie stars in their own right.However; this first sequel was a pale imitation, with a group now composed of largely B and C list players, who were more mediocre than magnificent. It was a similar set-up. Brynner's 'Chris' had to recruit yet another team of gun-toting saddle-tramps to sort out the Mexican peasants' problems again. Another tyrant was giving them grief.With the originality and freshness of the first movie now spent, this remake had little else to offer. The budget was evidently very limited. This was reflected not only in the cast, but also in the below-par script, which borrowed much from the earlier classic. It was also more than half an hour shorter than John Sturges' original. Yet we still had a reprise of the agonising and moralising that made even the first a little turgid at times. However, here there was no decent acting, action or location work to balance things up. Filmiing was less expansive. It failed to convey the broad sweep of landscapes that were a great part of the original.Generally; it just lacked imagination. The first movie had been a smash-hit, and this pedestrian sequel was evidently put together as quickly and cheaply as possible in order to cynically cash-in on former success. And it shows. There's very much a 'made for TV' feel about it.Not recommended.