The Harder They Fall is both a rollicking western romp and a depiction of true Black cowboy history. Our pardner Rory Doherty writes that Netflix’s film can’t quite deliver on either front.
The Harder They Fall
The story of Jeymes Samuel’s Western The Harder They Fall is largely invented. But titles onscreen tell us that, when it comes to its all-Black ensemble of cowboys and outlaws, “These. People. Existed.” Such overdramatic insistence characterises most of the rollicking action that will follow, but in a film packed with this many wisecracks and gunfights, you start to wonder if there’s an insecurity behind the opening titles.
Are we being so aggressively reminded of these characters’ tangential link to history because Samuel, making his debut as writer-director, is not confident that they can otherwise stand on their own?
In terms of the story we’re presented with, it becomes obvious these characters are ‘real’ in name only. Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) was a real, celebrated cowboy, but he never embarked on a vengeful crusade to avenge the deaths of his parents. The ruthless Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) really did lead an outlaw gang, but he was decades younger than he is portrayed here, and his dogmatic pro-Native American ideology is absent from the film.
Films inspired by true events have no obligation to stick close to reality, but The Harder They Fall is seemingly a film caught between two worlds; with one foot rooted in the true Black history of the wild west, and the other in the glorious excesses of Blaxploitation and Spaghetti Westerns. It’s a tricky balance to pull off, and Samuel doesn’t appear to be that proficient a filmmaker to avoid The Harder They Fall falling into messy territory.
Even the most celebrated films of the Western canon are dripping in racism, and it’s refreshing to see the xenophobic values of the genre turned on their head with such assertiveness. Boasting one of the finest ensembles of a major film in recent memory, it’s unapologetically goodies (Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo) versus baddies (Idris Elba, Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield). While it does sometimes feel crowded, and some performers are left hung out to dry (Zazie Beetz spends a good portion of the film captured), Samuel peppers the film with funny and affecting beats.
There’s plenty of amusing banter in the form of Jim Beckworth (RJ Cyler) and Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), and a surprisingly compelling turn from Danielle Deadwyler as Cuffee the tomboy gunslinger who, amongst a sea of bloodshed, reacts most strongly to the prospect of wearing a dress.
The music is overblown, the standoffs are melodramatic, the violence is explosive; but you can’t help but wish the film was as impactful emotionally as it is sensorially. None of the characters (except perhaps Cuffee) feel developed past the surface-level, meaning there’s not a lot of strong drama to cling onto when the guns start firing.
That’s not to say the performances are bad; Jonathan Majors gets a great opportunity to showcase what a titanically charismatic man he is, and the aforementioned trifecta of baddies really relish the scenery-chewing the script hands them. It’s just unfortunate that the script never hands them much, and when the characters take turns to recite monologues of their respective backstories, it feels stilted and amateurish.
Outside of screenplay woes, there’s little you can fault with Samuel’s promising talents. The Harder They Fall gets by pretty much on visuals alone, with rich colours and a lot of inventive camerawork. There’s no shortage of clever framing, with a Mexican stand-off between two shadows being particularly memorable, so it’s frustrating that with so much talent in front of and behind the camera, the script couldn’t have been developed more.
The ideas and archetypes of the Neo-Western are all on show. But that’s all they’re here for: show. The dying of the west is told to us rather than dramatised, and lessons of cyclical violence are played as cheap reveals rather than meaningful themes. The Harder They Fall is not interested in critically engaging with the omission of Black cowboys in the Western genre; rather, it seeks to make up for lost time by having a terrific cast enjoy the thrills and spills that have been historically denied to Black characters.
It’s clear Samuel has a dynamic and eye-catching career ahead of him, but his debut fails to deliver on its promises of all-out brilliance, settling for middling entertainment instead.
