Did I just watch a remake of the Magnificent Seven or a remake of Blazing Saddles. Ok I'm being tongue in cheek. But throughout this film which admittedly had good action scenes, was gritty, and was visually not bad but everything else screamed of Blazing Saddles. Instead of dirt poor villagers we get the good folk of Rose Creek. In Blazing Saddles it was the good folk of Rock Ridge, "people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons". No sorry no Hedy sorry Hedley Lamar played to the hilt by a comedic Harvey Korman. But we do have an over the top very evil Bartholomew Bogue played to the hilt by Peter Sarsgaard. When Chisolm played stoically by Denzel Washington rides into to town my thoughts turned to Bart played by Cleavon Little riding into town in Blazing Saddles. Any minute now I expected some crazy old dude to announce that the "Hey, the sheriff's a *** - Church bells clang". While watching Bogue's huge gang of cutthroats riding towards Rose Creek I expected any moment now a toll booth to pop up in the desert. While watching Bogue's men being blown up by dynamite I kept looking for men and horses flying in the air. Finally as Chisolm and Vasquez rode off into the sunset I wondered if they had a Cadillac waiting for them. Maybe the film could have used a little of a songstress played by Madeline Kahn to give us some romantic interlude. No such luck. Ok the film wasn't totally bad. Love the diversity touch of Chisholm's Seven even as I wondered where was a Robert Vaughn. Lee Byung-Hun was a nice substitute for James Coburn. Finally a nice touch at the end as they played the theme song from the original Magnificent Seven. Hopefully Kurosawa wasn't rolling over in his grave though.
