The Harder They Fall

The Harder They Fall
Starring Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Regina King
Directed by Jeymes Samuel

When you think of the wild west, you think of characters like Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickok due to the countless number of Western films that've graced the big screen for the last few decades. Yet there's stories that have remained relatively lost to history, and those are the stories of the African American men and women who also helped shape the Western landscape just as much as their white counterparts that are household names. While most people have never heard of the likes of Nat Love, Rufus Buck, Stagecoach Mary, Bass Reeves, Cherokee Bill, or Jim Beckwourth, their contributions to the history of the Wild Wild West can't go unnoticed, and thanks to the directing style of Jeymes Samuel, their stories can now be told - or at least their names can be heard, so you can look them up later and read about their real lives apart from this fictionalized tale.

Years after outlaw Rufus Black (Idris Elba) and his men murdered his parents and permanently scarred his forehead, Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) has made it his life's mission to track down and kill Rufus and his men, and he's managed to mostly achieve his goal, with the exception of Rufus himself, who's incarcerated but just received a pardon and is released by his new gang led by Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (Lakeith Stanfield). Meanwhile Nat's old gang robs from the Crimson Hood gang and takes money that belongs to Black, and Nat reunites with them and his former lover Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz) in order to take Rufus down once and for all. Yet they're hunted by Rufus and his gang for stealing money from them, resulting in an old fashioned wild west shootout with a modern feel.

"The Harder They Fall" has all the benchmarks of a traditional spaghetti Western: quick-draws, huge gunfights, racing on horseback, back robberies, and classic hand-to-hand combat. It also heralds back to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s where it features an all-African American cast portraying real-life African American Western outlaws and cowboys in a fictionalized story. Typically when genres blend like this, something gets lost in the translation - but this is not the case here. Instead, even though the middle part of the film meanders a bit, it maintains a sense of excitement and thrilling action that permeates the Western genre and gives a new, modern take on the tale.

At the center of the film is the classic revenge tale, as Nat traverses the Western landscape in order to get revenge on the man who killed his parents, while Rufus also searches high and low for the men who stole money from him, culminating in a classic old west showdown at the (not) OK Corral. Director Jeymes Samuel (best known as the stage name The Bullitts and the younger brother of singer Seal) infuses his own unique style to the Western genre, making the fighting sequences more like a Bourne film than a classic John Wayne outing, filled with slow-mo camera work mixed with faster movements, multiple angle shots and a pumping soundtrack that invigorates the audience and keeps them entertained for a genre that's long thought dead.

Jonathan Majors plays Nat Love with a blend of suave sophistication with deep-seeded emotional turmoil as he embarks on his seemingly suicidal quest, along with his gang who serves as his literal ride or die. Zazie Beetz proves that not all damsels in the West are in distress as Stagecoach Mary, who's an expert markswoman and more than holds her own in hand-to-hand combat, whose story is the weaker part of the film as the middle of the film finds her in the literal "damsel in distress" moment, but Beetz never misses a beat to maintain Mary's stern resolve. Her counterpart is Regina King's Trudy Smith, who's a sociopath in every sense of the word. She won't hesitate to cut off your head and enjoy a steak afterward, and we even get a sense of her past during a deep conversation with Mary that proves why Regina King is one of the most acclaimed actresses in recent memory. Then there's Idris Elba, who exudes charm and charisma with simplicity that's effortless, giving a charming nature to Rufus Buck's sadistic nature that makes him a more well-rounded villain than just the handlebar mustache twirling variety.  In fact, you could say that there's no real heroes in this story, as both Nat and Rufus are criminals in their own right, and depending on whose story you hear, you'd see the other as the villain.

In telling the story, Jeymes Samuel utilizes not just his natural talent for music, but also providing a lush cinematic experience that's sadly lost in a sense in the world of Netflix, unless you got one of those state-of-the-art television sets that shows everything in true cinematic quality. Cinematographers Mihai Malaimare Jr. and Sean Bobbitt frame the Wild West in stunning beauty and charm while providing unique visuals that make the film feel like a blast from the past while also incorporating modern filming styles and visuals that make it exciting and something that could entice a younger generation to really dig deep into the roots of the Western genre and the real lives of those who shaped it.

Offering a different take on a long-forgotten genre, "The Harder They Fall" is filled with tremendous performances, classic action told through a modern lens, and encapsulates everything that makes the Western genre exciting and fascinating for a new generation.

The Score: A+