The Harder They Fall

The Harder They Fall

Gunning for revenge, outlaw Nat Love saddles up with his gang to take down enemy Rufus Buck, a ruthless crime boss who just got sprung from prison.

  • Released: 2021-10-22
  • Runtime: 139 minutes
  • Genre: Western
  • Stars: Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, Lakeith Stanfield, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, RJ Cyler, Deon Cole, Damon Wayans Jr., Woody McClain, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Jacobi Howard, Julio Cedillo, Tait Fletcher, Dylan Kenin, Andria B Langston, Ernest Marsh, Chanel Mack, Tracy Obonna, Howard Ferguson Jr., Bonita King, Mickey Dolan, Marissa Freeman, Sadiqua Bynum, Zacciah Hanson, DyNiesha Lysette Whitfield, David Hight, Stephanie Hill, Vic Browder, Ivan Lee Holmes, Michael E. Stogner, Angie Jenkins, Steve Corona, Peyton Jackson, J. Nathan Simmons, Terrence Clowe, Manny Rubio, Nicholas G. Sims, Michael Beach, DeWanda Wise, Chase W. Dillon, Aahkilah Cornelius, Mark Rhino Smith
  • Director: Jeymes Samuel
 Comments
  • masonfisk - 12 January 2023
    TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING...!
    Netflix's revisionist Western, w/an all Black cast, from 2021. Taking copious beats & notes from Sergio Leone (mostly his 1968 classic Once Upon a Time in the West) we have a baddie, played by Idris Elba, breaking into a preacher's home killing him & his wife, in full view of their son who's branded by having a cross etched on his forehead via knife as a reminder (as if this is something one would forget the moment one looks away). Fast forward a number of years & the surviving son, now personified by Jonathan Majors from Lovecraft Country, has assembled a group of bandidos who have just hit the Red Hood gang after they themselves robbed a bank. Killing off the bulk of the gang, Majors & company, which include Edi Gathegi & Delroy Lindo take the loot but we learn later the Gang's run by Elba whose own men, which includes Oscar winner Regina King & Oscar nominee LaKeith Stanfield, has broken him out of a train prison to return to a town he runs but now after the theft, a proposed land purchase has to be sidelined. Picking up an old lover, played by Atlanta's Zazie Beetz, Majors heads to Idris' burg to confront him for what he's done in the past, will he be man enough to do it? Taking a boilerplate plot-line, director/co-writer Jeymes Samuel, tries his best w/interesting camera angles & righteous attitude to spare but considering the last all Black western, 1993's Posse, directed by Mario Van Peebles, was the last cock of the walk & while it wasn't the best, it knew what it was doing while here at a massive 2 plus hours (not that Leone's later product was long as well) we have too many scenes of unnecessary verbal fisticuffs between characters who've just met on screen which lead to the eventual quick draw. The actors are all fine but they're playing overwritten types not characters w/Elba being given short shrift w/nothing to do but make it to the showdown for his just desserts. Let's hope Samuel learns lessons from this first cinematic test & applies them to his next.
  • DunkelheitVZ - 9 September 2022
    I know I am too late to the party....
    ... but sometimes you have to write a review just to get your feelings out there.

    This movie is astonishingly bad.

    The dialogues go: "I am badass" "yeah, but I am badasser" "no I am" "look how slow and distinguished I can speak, I am clearly more of a badass".

    The music.... I don't know, who had the idea of putting Reggae music in a western? I mean, it worked in "A Knight's Tale", but here it did not. You either love the music or you hate it, it comes down to taste, but there was not a single scene enhanced through music. Every time I heard some very strange songs in this Western, I did not think "oh how cool, they went down away from beaten paths", but I though "this is disturbing" and pulled me out of the movie.

    Some reviewers here say that this movie is stylish, but the style had no purpose. Neither had the immense brutality.

    The story is forgettable, even the revenge theme did not feel like it was worth anything.

    There were so many headscratching scenes that did not deliver:
    • Oh there is a woman on the track, let us stop the train
    • There is this brutal guy, let me talk to him, because.... maybe I can convince him. It is worth giving up the element of surprise
    • let us ride right into the bad guys town in the middle of the road so that they can shoot us from all angles and (more to come:) they don't shoot them
    • let us rob a bank and put Cuffee in woman's clothes, but this change of wardrobe was not needed at all
    • don't get me started with the shootout scene (why don't they count down so slow), that was so unbelievable
    • oh did I mention the music? Yeah, I think I did, but it was especially bad in the last shootout/fistfight between Trudy and Mary.


    • smoking in the middle of the shootout? Do you want to go the badass way or the goofy way? Both together rarely work out.


    Everything in this movie felt like a vehicle. There was plot armor all around. It killed my immersion and very soon my will to finish the movie. Which I did, but still regret.

    There is one factor that I liked and that was Cuffee. Hence the 2 points. Elba was charismatic as always, not that his scenes made any sense

    Anyway, I need to stop ranting now, but I am glad that this movie is over.