The Harder They Fall Review: Netflix’s Sleek Black Western Is Defiant, Not Deep

“While the events in this story are fictitious… These. People. It existed. “

Jeymes Samuel’s star-studded black-centric western The harder they fall it opens on that challenging and creatively flexible note. All the main characters in Samuel’s inflated storyline directorial debut borrow their names from a historical African-American cowboy or outlaw. By putting them in a gory, slippery spaghetti western, Samuel can take the liberty of remaking his legends in his own image, for a diverse contemporary epic.

It’s easy to give full praise The harder they fall for representation purposes, but the actual merits of that benchmark are not obvious, given the historical competition. Black Westerns began with the Richard C. Kahn films of the 1930s, then took off during the 1970s alongside Blaxploitation, with films such as Buck and the preacher and Thomasine and Bushrod. In the 1990s, they found new avenues, such as Rosewood. The harder they fall take his initial example from Mario Van Peebles Group, a precursor western to the 1993 Black ensemble starring Blair Underwood, Tiny Lester and Pam Grier. Like Group, The harder they fall focuses on an outlaw son who seeks revenge for his murdered preacher father.

Samuel’s version of the story revolves around Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), a bandit leader with a prominent cross carved on his forehead by the man who murdered his father. Love seeks revenge on his own, but is unable to completely rid himself of his loyal gang, including the laid-back Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), cheeky Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), quick draw expert Jim Beckworth (RJ Cyler), and the Unwavering Cuffee. (Danielle Deadwyler), along with famed attorney Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo). The killer, the notorious Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), has his own hardened crew to match: the ruthless Trudy Smith (Regina King) and the cunning Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield) back his efforts to control a city, supposedly to protect the black residents that he holds under his thumb.

Aside from the star-studded set, with some of the actors totally misunderstood, this movie It is only innovative in the sense that it was designed for broadcast. Its aesthetic is more striking than elegant or striking. Your story is too light to support running time too long. The western natural landscape, artificially interpreted, lacks immensity. Samuel The harder they fall It doesn’t rise to the epic scale of its spaghetti and Blaxploitation influences – the genre has never felt so small and easy to convey as it does in this tacky misadventure.

While larger-than-life versions of these figures did exist, it is unclear what story Samuel wants to tell about them. Few of these figures are well written. No one is likely to leave this romp knowing more about the historical Buck, Love or Mary. This is a fantastic reinvention, but it’s unclear what legend Samuel is trying to create. Does the mere sight of blacks on the screen serve as your thesis? Is the movie purely entertainment or does it have a message? Samuel ends up trapped between that surface and whatever deeper ideas he may have in mind.

Halfway try to imbue The harder they fall With Romance: Nat Love and Stagecoach Mary are a stormy subject. He carries his dead mother’s wedding ring with him, seeking the opportunity to propose to Mary. But none of the sensuality between these characters is remotely credible. Every note Beetz hits when the haunting Mary sounds fake, from her ridiculously cartoonish southern accent to her over-the-top swagger. Majors plays Love as if she’s in a character study, relying on painstaking choices to build a personality. But in a movie packed with great performances, his nuanced approach puts him in a completely different movie than his counterparts.

In fact, the only actor in this movie perfectly suited for a western is Lindo, to the point where it’s a surprise that he’s never been in one before. He has the seriousness and frame of Gary Cooper. Part of that is by design: His character, Bass Reeves, represents old-school Western lawmakers. It makes sense for him to remember the classics of the genre as the younger actors bring a fresh, modern twist and fresh black flair to their archetypes. Samuel is not the first person to inject the genre with Black swagger: Will Smith did it in steampunk style in Wild wild west. But while these characters have individual verve, they don’t complement each other. Even with a good relationship between King and Elba, or between Cyler and Deon Cole like Buck’s former ally Wiley Escoe, the writing provides little reason why these disparate characters came together under one banner prior to the events of the film. .

For example, Buck’s bandits have come together to create a “Promised Land” in the all-black city of Redwood City. Its name closely resembles the real-life, predominantly Black Florida settlement in the center of John Singleton’s historic Black Western. Rosewood, where white rioters massacred the affluent black population. The city of Samuel is painted in opulent hues: vibrant pinks, lush reds, and green greens. Everything is owned by blacks, from homes and businesses to the government.

But aside from that aesthetic, Samuel doesn’t clarify why this town is a promised land, aside from the alleged lack of white residents. It is implied that Rufus has a vision for this deal and that he wants to avoid white intruders and racial bloodshed. But he never fully delivers his thesis, beyond requiring residents to pay a high tax for his protection. His Edenic dream appears to be a contrivance, but it is unclear whether he or his followers really believe in it as more than just a jolt.

The aesthetics of The harder they fall it looks fake instead of fancy, and disgustingly fancy instead of fantastic. Redwood City is too clean, without a speck of dust or mud to add character. Costume designer Antoinette Messam uses a baffling effect to age some of the clothes, like hats and some jackets, and Buck’s striped prison outfit. But your work looks like fresh off a coat rack rather than worn or worn. The rendered night sky surrounding Redwood makes the landscape feel claustrophobic and fake, trapping the city in a scale-down VFX snow globe.

There’s plenty of blood from the dynamically fired slick shootouts. Samuel’s penchant for using freeze frames to punctuate violent scenes is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s equally edgy work. Samuel primarily composed or remixed the music himself – he’s an established British musician under the stage name The Bullitts, and he sets the soundtrack to the action with perfect homages to Sergio Leone, mixed with modern hip-hop and reggae beats. (He also brings his brother, music artist Seal, to collaborate and perform a number.) But these surprising components of the film add some hints of tension or suspense to the narrative. Elba is particularly underutilized as the film’s main villain: In the biggest shootout between Redwood’s warring gangs, he watches from his office window.

The stakes to evoke dramatic momentum often battle each other to gain recognition in history. Love’s quest for revenge, Buck’s vague dream of a black utopia, Reeves’ determination to arrest Buck, and half a dozen minor personal subplots emerge and submerge throughout the film, but to no particular arc. you are offered so much room to breathe that viewers have time. to invest in the result. By the time Samuel reveals the information intended to help define these characters and their conflicts, the overloaded imagery and story have outgrown any sense of meaningful human connection into oblivion.

The prospects of a Black Western with so much star power invited hopes for a paradigm shift that would allow for more of these films to be made and to fight against the long-term and dangerous. Western myth that American history was primarily white. These great productions that promise change through representation often invite us to focus on their importance, to the point where we lag behind the actual quality of the film. But Samuel is not interested in telling stories of real people, choosing between excess and substance, or providing a worthwhile political or emotional conceit. And all those things are important for a movie that wants to make a difference.

Instead, it has remade the western not entirely in the image of blacks, but rather in the image of a Netflix movie – a low-impact, high-profile, easy-to-digest streaming project. Never has the western genre seemed so small and meaningless. the The harder they fall it is a deliberate step towards the on-screen representation of historical black characters. But it is not as good as it should be to make those names memorable for a country that has forgotten them.

The harder they fall debuts in theaters on October 22 and on Netflix on November 3.