The Harder They Fall World Premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and will receive a limited theatrical release on October 22nd, before streaming on Netflix on November 3rd.
The Western is one of the golden children of the Hollywood era. Once a monolithic cultural icon, now a worn leather boot dusted off now and again. Most modern westerns smash it with another genre – No Country for Old Men’s neo-noir undertones, Django Unchained’s pulpy Tarantino referentiality, The Revenant’s one-man army revenge thriller. These all play with tools of the Western, but none fully commit to the days of sharp-shooting showdowns and saloon fights. If you’ve been itching for a true, honest-to-god Western, Jeymes Samuel has the cinematic sarsaparilla you’ve been thirsting for.
The set-up is simple: two stories, the infinitely handsome Jonathan Majors’ Nat Love, wounded from loss, on his quest for revenge against the villainous Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), reluctantly teams up with local marshal Bass Reeves, played by the incomparable Delroy Lindo. This may be one of the strongest casts a film has boasted in a long time: add Zazie Beetz, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield, and you have one of the most delicious ensembles this side of the West.
Majors continues to dazzle you with every moment Nat Love graces our presence upon the screen – he carries this gentle façade, only dropping when the absolute moment is right to unsheathe this ferocious tenacity that explodes onto the screen. It’s clear that Majors isn’t playing Nat Love; he is Nat Love. In the press conference, Majors described that the drive for this ferocious tenacity comes from the fact that “equality is the driving force for Nat – he wants to make it even however he can. If someone robs a bank, he’ll rob them.”
The result is this Hamlet-on-the-range princely deconstruction of the cowboy. That need for equality drives everything Nat does, carved into him both metaphorically and literally by the actions of Idris’ Buck. As Producer James Lassiter put it, The Harder They Fall is “more than a Western, it’s a love story”, and we see that with Nat. His actions are divided by a longing for a life with Stagecoach Mary and a resolution of revenge on behalf of his devotion to his parents.
Just as Love is driven by something, as is his enemy – Idris described Rufus as “ruthless but progressive in thought, trying to create a safe space for Black people at a time where they had nowhere, albeit ruthlessly.” Evidently, the true villain of this is more than Rufus Buck – it’s the prejudices and discrimination that create villains like him. While The Harder They Fall is predominantly focused on this classical story, Samuel still peppers in some relevant commentary, whether through humour, a simple look, or a gesture.
Samuel modernises the Western without distorting it through deconstructing old stereotypes, and invigorating his camera with a frantic, fluid energy. Every female figure, Trudy, Mary or Danielle Deadwyler’s Cuffie, all act for themselves, for once their existences are not born out of a child nor a man. As Regina King puts it, “there’s no connection other than who they are themselves.” Trudy and Rufus are partners, not lovers; she’s as deadly and ferocious, perhaps even more so, than he is. This allows King to truly envelop herself in this malevolent presence that pounds your heart with her 1000-mile stare, as though her bullet has pierced your heart before you know it. She’s wickedly deadly, and Samuel makes sure everyone knows it.
What truly invigorates this Western with a modern flavour is Sean Bobbit and Mihai Mălaimare Jr.’s cinematography. Every camera shot has a constant rhythm, ebbing and flowing like Samuel directs the entire film on a beat. We whip across desolate towns as shotguns are aimed, the pounding of a gun’s butt pushes us closer and closer into the frame. Where once the cameras of the Western were as deadly still as their showdown superstars, now they ride like the wind, creating a mesmerising and thrilling feast for the eyes. Scenes play out like songs, visual verses leading to a cinematic chorus that sweeps you off your feet.
What’s most unique about this Western is obvious – it’s a near-complete black ensemble, alongside black directors and producers (hello, Jay-Z!) In the past year, a debate has raged on whether streaming services are killing cinema, and to that, Samuel had to say: “Netflix blasts it all around the world at once. I don’t think any other company would’ve made The Harder They Fall.” It’s a fascinating perspective, and one many perhaps hadn’t considered. Questions of accessibility and representation are a focal point today, and it seems that streaming services provide an avenue to service both of those droughts that big studios still cannot, as producer James Lassiter noted: “There’s still in-built biases to theatrical releases, that I know aren’t true.”
Stunningly, this debut film from Jeymes Samuel both revives and instils new life into the Western genre. Through his kinetic, rhythmic cinematography and thoughtful deconstructions of our western archetypes, he’s crafted one of the best modern Westerns of our time.
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