So last night, the Celtics were losing to the Magic at halftime, and despite the fact that they ended up coming back to kinda slap them around a little bit, I turned it off. Instead, I decided to queue up Netflix and the new neo-Western offering: "The Harder They Fall" (dir. Jeymes Samuel, in an astounding directorial debut).
Right from the jump, if you went into this 2021 release expecting a serious, earnest Western, that moves slowly, that would be partially understandable, but that's certainly not what was given here, and that's a beautiful thing.
The opening "crawl" insinuates that while the story may be fictitious, "These. People. Existed". And they did, from Nat Love to Rufus Buck to "Stagecoach Mary", the story takes a handful of mythological characters from history many people don't know about and creates a world and conflicts for them.
The jumping-off point with this film has to be the cast, and the top-to-bottom unadulterated power that each of them brings. With the exception of Jonathan Majors' Nat Love, there aren't many opportunities for real nuance, but each appearance of every character pulls your attention towards them. Some people feel as though this film has a bit of an issue keeping track of everything and everyone, but I could almost see that as a credit to the power of the whole cast.
Between Idris Elba's Thanos-esque menace, enhanced by some slick camera work, Regina King's ever-pressing stare, and Lakeith Stanfield's constant impressing of uneasiness on the audience, the foes lining up across from Majors and company appear formidable. The latter especially brought a quiet sense of "what the fuck is this guy gonna do next" to Cherokee Bill (another real cowboy of old).
On the side of Nat Love is Zazie Beetz's Stagecoach Mary, an awesome Delroy Lindo as conflicted Marshal Bass Reeves (real-life inspiration for the Lone Ranger), and a triad of minor characters, all of whom filled Western tropes to a perfect "T". Special nod going to RJ Cyler's quick-draw specialist, who provided moments of dialogue levity.
Story-wise, The Harder They Fall doesn't do much unique in the genre, but that of course is hard to do in a Western, period. As a revenge tale, it serves the purpose it's supposed to, with a nice twist at the end. I do maybe wish the twist came slightly earlier, personally, but that's why people write about their opinions on movies.
The real attraction to this world, to me, comes in the world itself. You never truly believe you're in a realistic depiction of the American West. There's a level of sheen and sleekness put on by Samuel and Co., both to their characters and their appearances, as well as the towns they desire. Of course, sticking out to me is Maysville (It's A White Town), which is a gag that truly needs to be seen to be appreciated fully.
To go along with these slightly less-than-believable places and people is violence that blends between real-life and Tarantino levels of gore. This adds to the world that we live in for the 2h 20m run-time, and the nods to inspirations like QT and both Blaxploitation and spaghetti Westerns of old may be fairly on the nose, but they check enough boxes for me.
Give this movie a shot if you have a Netflix subscription, no question! 4.25/5
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