'Everybody knows it's suicide to take from us'....'Obviously someone disagrees'
The Harder they Fall 8.2
There's an interesting message at the start saying these are fictional events but real people, which seems pointless, I can only think the point of that was to show that there was a noticeable black presence in the Wild West, something you could have missed by only watching classic Westerns.
There's a lush opening shot which peaked my interest, showing a house isolated on a wide open plain, almost reminiscent of the houses from James Dean's last film Giant, or Days of Heaven. Inside is a loving family sitting down to dinner, we can sense this peace will not last long. Big Driss arrives, although we don't see his face til later, he kills the parents for revenge and scars the boy. The rest of the plot is now clear, especially given the title, it's a David v. Goliath revenge flick. The boy will grow up and try to avenge his parent's murders, not far off Amsterdam Vallon in Gangs of New York. We get alot of the proceeding stories of the two... Idris playing Buck, basically a mob boss, is busted out of prison by his feared gang and has some scores to settle. The grown boy, Nat, a gang leader himself, is arrested for a previous bank robbery. He has got Idris' attention by intercepting a shipment of his. Through this n that, of course they end up facing off. The story itself isn't particularly exceptional and is on the simplistic side, but I thought alot of the rest of the production was top notch.
Technically this has a highly stylized look and very flashy cinematography, which I love. The costumes and sets are very colourful, as is the language, which does not atall sound authentic for the time, more like Straight Outta Compton or alike. But then who knows what is authentic, just another way for the director to make use of dramatic license. Besides the dialogue, the script is full of rich detail and good moments like the main character singing to the camera, funny moments especially with the quick-draw guy and worthwhile attention paid to the more minor characters, almost aways a good thing and a genuine decent reason for a 2 hour plus runtime.
The directing, although I thought it was a bit OTT, busy and inexperienced to start with - most scenes have some sort of technique being used be it sound or visual - it works very well most of the time so I warmed to it as the film went on. I've not heard of the director but this was without doubt heavily Tarantino inspired. It could easily have ended up a real mess, but I think it held together surprisingly well, maybe because it was done with so much unflinching confidence. There wasn't as much beneath the surface as I would have liked but all the surface was so intoxicating that I didn't care much.
The western setting and Tarantino style violence (and the credits and title cards even) reminded me of Django Unchained, but since I'm such a huge Django fan this probably isn't a helpful comparison to make. It isn't as good but does a great job of standing alone. Aswell as the Tarantino inspiration, there are moments reminiscent of older westerns and there is a moment 25 minutes in when we first see Regina King, although we can only see her eyes, we see her gloved hand go from palm out (as if saying stop) to pointing sideways like a gun. As soon as I saw it I recognised it, this is taken from a well known moment from Malcolm X (at the time Malcolm is essentially directing his army) a touchstone of black cinema and possibly Denzel's career best performance. Talking of performances, besides one good speech this doesn't have alot from Idris Elba, just alot of looking menacing. It is not an issue since everyone else does such a fine job. I especially liked Jonathan Majors as Nat and Delroy Lindo as the sheriff, who is also great in Malcolm X.
You know I love a scene with someone singing live, and we get a good one here. Halfway, when Mary comes back to check out Buck's setup and she walks into his bar, I expected to see the classic Western cliche of a dingy dive full of cut throats drinking whiskey, playing cards and fighting. Instead it's like some sort of post modern party, there's a woman singing something melancholic and another in bright blue shown close up, central in the frame dancing. Mary walks through, taking it all in, looking confused.. that sequence was the best bit of the film for me. There were a couple of minor weaker points, the big shootout at the end was less interesting than the rest, and there are a couple of predictable plot points- the small guy looked like a girl from the start, and the quick draw countdown was predictably never gonna get to 1.
There is an undercurrent of racial commentary stuff, at one point someone says the devil is white, and all the whites are either background or in the way. I really loved when they went to Maysville, one of them says 'it's a white town' meaning they won't be welcome there, and the whole town is actually white, maybe to show that the culture can take over and infect a place. Whatever it meant, that was a seriously great little moment, and a very good scene besides.
I didnt know what to expect going into this one but I found the whole film so characterful and quite joyous, I think it could become one of those cultural classics in the future. Admittedly not in the Godfather or 2001 sense of critical classic, more in the American Graffiti/Big Lebowski/Evil Dead cult classic sense. Lots of the imagery has been stuck in my head and for a film with relatively little depth, this swings hard and hits a home run.
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