The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

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

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

With about a week to go,I talked to my dad about what presents to get for a pal for their birthday. Knowing that me and my friend are hoping to see the new Magnificent Seven on the big screen,my dad decided to get him the final title from the original Magnificent Seven era.The plot:Trying to put his outlaw life behind him,Chris focuses on being the best sheriff in town,who makes sure that everyone serves their time for misdeeds (even when his wife Arrila pleas for a teen ragamuffin to be freed!) Learning that his old friend Jim Mackay is caught in an ambush,Chris goes to help him out. After helping him escape,Chris is asked by Mackay to help him protect a town that is being overrun by outlaws. Turning down the offer,Chris soon discovers that he will have to gather up the Magnificent Seven.View on the film:Crossing the floor, Lee Van Cleef gives a very good performance as Chris,who despite having an "old romantic" side which looks a bit odd against Cleef's credits,is given a smooth soulfulness from Cleef,which Cleef melts down with a pipe smoking stamp which keeps all the guys in line with a cold hard stare. For the lone Magnificent Seven flick of the 70's,director George McCowan and cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp ride off to a dusty warmth,as smooth crane shots catch the glare from the sun gliding over the 7 outlaws.Loading up short shots of action, McCowan gives the movie a grubby mood by splatting dry blood on the slow-draw cowboys. Mapping out the final set-piece, McCowan rolls out explosive shoot-outs,that catch a few surprising people in the crossfire. Bringing the sun down on the series,the screenplay by Arthur Rowe gets some Western grit under the gun by firmly pulling Chris from the straight and the narrow back to the path of the outlaw. Clearly inspired by The Dirty Dozen (a film I've not yet seen!) Rowe fails to give the other six members of the gang "their moment" and instead leaves them to fade into the background,and stops The Magnificent Seven from going out with all guns blazing.

Gunfighting maverick Chris Adams is now happily married and has settled into his mundane life as a lawman in a small Texas town. However his hopes of retirement are dashed after his wife is kidnapped and brutally murdered by a trio of young thugs. Chris sets out on their trail and tracks them across the border where he takes his revenge. Although it turns out that our hero will have to go back to doing what he does best after he stumbles upon a town that has been left at the mercy of outlaw Detorro and his vicious band of killers. The men have been massacred and it is only the women and children who are left, prompting Chris to assemble five convicts, a newspaperman and a deadly arsenal of dynamite and long range rifles to do battle with the bandits one last time.Lee Van Cleef took a break from the Sabata trilogy to film The Magnificent Seven Ride!, the final movie in the Seven Samurai inspired quadrilogy. As always , Van Cleef brings his sardonic Colonel Mortimer-esque charm to the role and executes his portrayal with chilled assurance. After his work with Leone, the in-and-outs of the western became second nature to him, he seemed like a cool guy to have around and the western was his genre. The other actors that the seven comprised of, with the exception of Luke Askew, were pretty nondescript to me, therefore I wasn't too bothered when some of them were killed off in the huge action sequence at the end. It's easy to find oneself yawning or looking at their watch throughout the middle of the film, with the obligatory dry dialogue making the it feel longer than it is. we learn little about the members of the seven and the villain Detorro is rarely seen. Also the one factor that sets Ride! apart from the other three movies is the dark revenge plot, but it's quickly forgotten about at the film's halfway mark. The director could have done more with it and transformed the movie into something else entirely. However, the one thing that The Magnificent Seven movies were always er, magnificent at was showcasing a darned amazing action scene. Ride! is no exception as the bullets scream and the bodies fly, particularly during the fantastic climax where we are treated to an explosive shoot-em-up in the desert(which was gloriously chaotic)followed by a cracking shootout in the town's street. Some complimentary blood spatter is even thrown in alongside the explosions and stuntwork to crank the violence up a notch or two. Although these spectacular action scenes do not mask the predictability of the climax....And so The Magnificent seven series ends deservedly with a bang. Just bear with Ride! as it's a lot of fun with a few brilliant action scenes. 9/10

This ain't your grandfather's western. It's disturbing, cynical, morally ambiguous, and despite the stunningly bright visuals and bouncy themesong by Elmer Bernstein, it's one of the darkest westerns I've ever seen. I couldn't help but wonder if this film served as the template for the Eastwood masterpiece UNFORGIVEN that would come 20 years later.Unlike your classic westerns where the hero is infallable and can shoot the dandruff off a cockroach at 100 yards, this presents a realistic protagonist: a man who is troubled by questions of morality, one who doesn't always have the perfect plan, one who makes some pretty bad judgements and has to pay the price.There are some real gems of dialogue that illustrate this human factor, delivered brilliantly by Lee Van Cleef in the role of Chris.A priest says: "God works in mysterious ways."Chris retorts: "Yeah, he confuses the heck out of me, too."And throughout the film we get similar insight into the soul of a man who, despite his decades of experience, still doesn't have any answers--at least none that he can convince himself about, despite his bravado. For that reason alone, I rate this as one of my favourite westerns. Like the aforementioned UNFORGIVEN, this is one of the rare westerns that shows us what real life is about, not comic book goodguy/badguy stuff.I can only assume that's why this film doesn't seem to be well received. The earlier MAG7 films seemed to be a clearcut war between right & wrong, whereas MAG7 RIDE gives us a war between two different forms of insanity. This presents a much more challenging story to follow. Viewers might be confused at how a "good guy" can leave his friends to die, or how he doesn't fight fair. But to me--and maybe to you--it gives the story a lot more substance. It also makes the story very unpredictable right from the beginning, and as a result it's one of the most suspenseful westerns I've seen.A word about Stefanie Powers: FREAKIN AMAZING. Good golly miss molly, I didn't know she could act! If you think all she can do is "Hart to Hart" you gotta check this film out for her performance alone. It's a tough role, because she plays the emotional character amidst a backdrop of cold, leathery gunslingers. This formula is nothing new for western heroines; however I've noticed in other films the emotional heroine is too melodramatic, reducing her to the absurd. Stefanie, on the other hand, delivers the perfect subtle performance: very human yet not hysterical. She's smart, wise (in many cases wiser than any other character)... and I gotta say it... what a looker! You'll find your eyes glued to her in every scene.A final note, for anyone who notices this sort of thing: horses. As with all old westerns we see a fair number of horses getting thrown around. I went back & watched these scenes in slowmo, and I'm pretty sure that these were trained horses who fell without harm. Unlike RETURN OF THE MAG7 which was absolutely brutal (in one case you see a trip wire pop up, sending a 40mph, 2000lb horse onto its head--I doubt that horse ever got up again), these horses always fall to the side and roll safely. It always sucks when you learn how many horses are killed in these old westerns, but this film seemed to be pretty tame in that respect. Well, enough of that. The bottom line is I really enjoyed this film, and if any of this review made sense to you, I think you'll really like it, too. Go Ride(!) to your nearest video store and check it out. (gawd that was a cheezy line. Maybe I'll edit it out later)

I had high hopes for this film when I saw the listing and decided to watch it on TV, uninterrupted by commercial breaks. I've liked Lee Van Cleef in many movies but I'm afraid that having the other characters call him Chris repeatedly doesn't turn him into even a reasonable facsimile of Yul Brenner's Chris.I found this movie to be a complete disappointment - the music sound track tried to impart the magnificence portrayed in the original but it too failed to bring the film up the the standard of the original. The rich textures of the characters in the original were mostly missing from this film. I guess if you haven't seen the original it would be okay. Too many clichés and too little depth to the characters. I missed the humanity and compassion and the three dimensional characters of the original.