“The Harder They Fall” review – The Hollywood Reporter

Netflix drama The more they fall represents an exuberant and swaggering action-adventure set in the Old West, but with a hip, vibrant look and feel thanks to the focus on black figures inspired by historical figures, sleek handcrafted contributions and inspired needle drops. It’s a solid effort from British singer-songwriter-producer Jeymes Samuel, also known as The Bullitts, and now a multi-trait in the film industry.

Fortunately, it’s also a huge improvement over his previous directorial effort, that of 2013. They die at dawn, a somewhat stilted 50-minute work that revolved around many of the same characters but with a different cast list. With Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, and LaKeith Stanfield in this cast, the film is expected to generate a lot more buzz and could gain traction as an award contender until voters reject it. as too “kind” for serious consideration.

Long before its official premiere as the opening film of the BFI London Film Festival (it was also screened simultaneously in cinemas across the UK), The more they fall garnered enough press interest to generate articles about the actual historical figures portrayed in the film and larger articles on the history of black westerns. But while it is clear from the film that Samuel and his co-writer and Hollywood screenwriter Boaz Yakin (Costs, Now you see me) are familiar with the cinematic traditions of westerns, especially when it comes to how shootings, bank robberies and train robberies can be filmed, they are not valuable for historical accuracy.

Most of the main characters in the film – Rufus Buck (Elba), Nat Love (Majors), “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (King), “Stagecoach” Mary Fields (Beetz), “Cherokee” Bill Pickett (Stanfield) and Bass Reeves ( Lindo) – were real living and breathing historical figures, but they lived in different eras of the 19th century and probably never met. Or, as one opening chyron puts it, “While the events of this story are fictional… These. People. Has existed. This punchy punctuation for the accent bodes well that the film will flirt a lot with the anachronism and dialect of pop culture, winking at younger viewers. It’s a surprise that they didn’t add a clapping emoji (👏) after each stop for good measure.

This mix of facts, legends, and improvisational jazz-style writers’ whims begins with a traumatic act of murder, as unsettling as it is inexplicable. A family – a father, mother and young boy – move to their border farm to enjoy a meal where a grim figure walks, seen only from behind but immediately recognizable to fans of Thread, Marvel movies and promos for Sky TV in the UK as Idris Elba. The father begs the mysterious visitor to spare the lives of his wife and son, but the unwanted guest kills both father and mother. Finally, while an accomplice with a distinctive tattoo holds the boy motionless, the visitor cuts his forehead crosswise.

Flash-forward to the present of the film, in the late 1800s, and the scarred little boy became Nat Love, an outlaw and boss of the Nat Love gang who prey on other outlaws. , a bit like Omar in Thread. (As it turns out, the late Michael K. Williams, who played Omar, also played Love in Samuel’s They die at dawn, and the film is dedicated to him and to British entertainment lawyer Richard Antwi in the end credits). Above all else, Love is determined to find the men who killed her parents, and after taking out the tattooed figure early on, all that’s left is the notorious armed robber Buck to hunt down and kill.

Thereafter, the movie essentially alternates between the two gangs as we discover the other infidels rooted and rooted in different shades of ruthlessness that make up each gang. In Team Rufus, there is Buck’s right-hand man, Trudy, apparently his romantic partner but, more important for the purposes of the film, a tough lieutenant. Cherokee Bill, a terse sniper, also reports to Buck.

Love’s group mirrors Buck’s in terms of prowess, but has a slightly more diverse hiring policy given that two members are female, or at least one of them identifies as female – the sensual saloonista Stagecoach Mary, who is also Nat’s main press. The other, Cuffy (Danielle Deadwyler’s delicious twist), with her penchant for cross-dressing, is more ambiguous in terms of gender identity. There is no ambiguity, however, about Cuffy’s pugilistic skills and speed with a gun, which is why she manages the door to Mary’s saloon.

Once Love and his cohort learn that Buck is in Redwood City (a town apparently in Texas or Oklahoma, not in the Bay Area of ​​California; plus, there is a dire shortage of redwoods in the township) , they come closer and closer to the final confrontation. . Some of the other outlaws Love and Co. bring or pick up along the way include Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), James Beckwourth (RJ Cyler) and finally Federal Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo, a bit underused) – again, all based on historical figures.

Some viewers, especially viewers of color – and it’s not for me, a white woman, to take this one – may have trouble with Samuel taking all of these interesting figures from the story and taking them out. used as names, creating a story around them, this is quite a departure from the actual facts recorded about real people. Apparently, for example, Nat Love was not an outlaw but a professional cowboy, born in slavery but once freed able to make a name for himself in the West thanks to his talent with horses, which helped to win competitions and become famous. He then wrote an autobiography.

This story could have deserved a movie on its own, especially if it featured actors as talented as this movie. Instead, maybe believe in good faith that the best way to get people interested in black history is to pay homage to some of the black people who were part of the Wild West and were overlooked by mainstream narratives. is to savagely distort the facts. By folding and looping Love’s and Buck’s and all the other stories of those people, Samuel and his team have done something arguably a little less interesting, a classic revenge tale in the tradition of True courage (either version), The Great Silence (1968), New Jack City (1991) or Shakespeare Titus Andronicus.

Or, if you will, it is a film which itself becomes a weapon of fantastic revenge by appropriating the story, in the manner of the counterfactual works of Quentin Tarantino. Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds (one of the producers, Lawrence Bender, is also a producer on Stronger) Where Once upon a time in hollywood. But that’s an issue for cultural critics to explore, as well as how the film barely talks about race per se (all white characters are totally marginalized), and the ethics of celebrating gun violence in as a show, especially the black on black gun. violence.

Take all that heavy stuff out of the equation, and it turns out to be an incredibly fun houenanny, done in style. The music alone is worth the price of admission or a month’s subscription. One of the first highlights is a banger, in every sense of the word, titled “Guns Go Bang”, performed by Jay-Z (also producer here by his other name, Shawn Carter) and Kid Cudi, who shares a credit to writing with Samuel. The coxswain wrote the score, among his many other duties here, and takes write credit on several of the tracks alone. Additionally, there are a number of extremely well-chosen cuts from older artists including plenty of reggae and deep dub from artists such as Barrington Levy and Dennis Brown that will appeal to fans of old school roots who might. get interested while waiting for a sequel to the classic 1972 Jamaican film The more they come, which featured reggae crooner Jimmy Cliff.

Kudos also to editor Tom Eagles, who cuts with razor-sharp precision in sync with the music, especially in the climactic showdown, filmed in a punchy, saturated palette delivered by DP Mihai Malaimare, production designer Martin Whist and costume designer Antoinette Messam . (Craft fans will be thrilled with the latest girlish fight between Mary de Beetz and King’s Trudy, which takes place in a dyehouse where rolls of fabric, skeins of yarn, and tubs of powdered pigment add a riot of color. to the procedure.)

The cast has chemistry in all directions, between romantic clashes but just as much among men as they bicker, bond and scold each other. In what may be a devious and tongue-in-cheek joke, Love and Buck’s final big boss fight becomes a competition less about goal and ballistics and more about who can cry more convincingly to the camera over his ruined childhood. character. A teardown? A fight of tears? Cinema doesn’t have a term yet for what the two actors are doing here, but that’s what we’re here for.