The Harder They Fall (2021)
Rights holder / Distributor: Netflix
The Harder They Fall is a 2021 American Western film directed by James Samuel according to the scenario of James Samuel и Boaz Yakin. It premiered in the US on October 22, 2021, and was released on Netflix on November 3 of the same year.
Nate Love learns that his old enemy Rufus Buck is getting out of prison and decides to find him to get revenge. He gathers his own gang, which includes his former love Stagecoach Mary, Bill Pickett and Jim Beckworth, while Buck has no less dangerous allies in the person of Trudy Smith and Cherokee Bill. Thus, the conflict gradually turns into a clash between two groups, and Nate's personal enmity is intertwined with the larger struggle for power. The characters are based on real people from the American West, but the story is fictional and brings together figures who lived in different times and places.
From the very first minutes James Samuel shows that he has no intention of making a traditional Western. The classic atmosphere is preserved, but it is broken through a modern rhythm, bright vision and music that consciously blurs the line between the old West and modern pop culture. This is one of the reasons why the film stands out from most contemporary representatives of the genre. Samuel knows Westerns well and even before his feature-length debut he worked in this direction with the short They Die by Dawn.
It's hard to find a weak link in the cast. Jonathan Majors builds Nate as a man driven by a long-held thirst for retribution, while Idris Elba gives Rufus Buck the necessary menace and charisma. Regina King is particularly convincing as Trudy Smith, and Zazie Beetz brings a different energy as Stagecoach Mary. Other standout performances include Lakeith Stanfield, Delroy Lindo, Eddie Gathegi, Daniel Deadwyler, R. Jay Saylor и Damon Wayans Jr..
The Harder They Fall does not attempt to recreate the classic Western as we know it, but uses it as the basis for something much more stylized. The action is brutal, the dialogue has its own rhythm, and the music of James Samuel and Jay-Z is an important part of the character of the production. However, behind the spectacular surface lies an interesting attempt to put real black figures from the history of the Wild West, who have long remained outside the traditional Hollywood narrative, at the center. The result is a confident and visually recognizable Western that has its own face and is not afraid to break the rules of the genre.
