The Harder They Fall

Metadata

  • Media: #films #Films 2021
    • Director: Jeymes Samuel
    • Rating: ★★★★☆
    • Idea richness: ★★★☆☆

Summary

Nat Love is out for revenge against the infamous Rufus Buck who murdered his parents and marked him for life as a child. When Rufus’ old gang secures his pardon (with a bit of train ambush shenanigans), Nat teams up with his own gang and a few new allies to take down Rufus once and for all. The only problem? Rufus has a town of his own now and outnumbers the Love gang. But Nat has money they stole from Rufus’ gang that they desperately need to protect their town. It’s a standoff.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: Nat’s former girlfriend, Stagecoach Mary, makes the risky (aka terrible) decision to walk into town to gather intelligence and gets captured. Nat then walks into town and also gets captured (shock. Though for some reason they let the rest of his gang go). Rufus makes a deal: bring back the money they stole and pull off a bank heist in an all-white and dangerous town to get some more (a first for the Love gang, who only rob other gangs), and the girl goes free. So the Love gang gets the money, walks back into town, promptly loses one of their members in a quick draw gone wrong, and then blows up the money. Somehow the girl is not killed and escapes and the Love gang get into a prolonged shootout with the Rufus Buck gang (who supposedly far outgunned them but get beat because it’s a western and that’s how it works).

We get a few final showdowns, including Stagecoach Mary vs Treacherous Trudy Smith, Rufus Buck’s right hand lady and best villain of the film, and Nat Love vs Rufus Buck. The latter turns into a one-sided affair as we discover the two are actually half brothers and Rufus murdered Nat’s parents as revenge on his own alcoholic father who had killed Rufus’ mother before fleeing and becoming a new man and Nat’s father. Nat is now conflicted all of a sudden but still ends up shooting Rufus, who doesn’t put up a fight, and that’s that.

/END SPOILERS and cue ride into the sunset.

Things I loved...

  • The type cards
  • The cast overall was stellar and brought the characters to life. Likewise the writing helped craft characters that felt interesting without wasting time on backstory or exposition for most.
  • Cuffee, Bass Reeves, and Cherokee Bill. Great characters and wish the last two got more attention. Bass Reeves especially was awesome. I was disappointed he didn't have a bigger role. Cherokee Bill was another character where I was left wishing I knew more but that in a good way that made the character all the more intriguing.
  • Trudy Smith was the best villain of the film. Wish she had been the main antagonist. Rufus was great with his mix of suave and unpredictable brutality but Trudy felt more sinister somehow. I’m also not used to seeing a female villain in westerns and I think it would be cool.
  • The train ambush (basically the trailer I saw and one of the reasons I watched the film).

Things I didn't...

  • The run time. Could have shaved off 10-20 minutes of unnecessary staring and drawn out sequences. I’m not a fan of super long films and it felt like it lost some of the style and snap because of the run time.
  • The final showdown. The ‘reveal’ felt forced and perhaps designed to make Rufus Buck more sympathetic when I felt it would have worked better doubling down on the overlaps between hero and villain instead and highlighting their respective choices to either converge or diverge instead of the revenge element. Honestly I thought Rufus was more interesting before the reveal as an antagonist with a grand vision but murderous means for achieving it, as an opposite to the protagonist Nat Love who dreamed of revenge but was trying to achieve it without becoming what he hated.
  • Basically the entire middle of the film. Damsel in pointless distress she literally walks into and extends the film by an hour right as I thought it was heading for some kind of elaborate infiltration and showdown as the protagonists figured out how to take a town where they are severely outgunned.
  • The protaginists’ plans in general? I don’t know, I was expecting a western town standoff and it definitely has that but it feels like they spend the film talking about how they can’t just walk into the town because that would be suicide so I was expecting more and then they… just walk into the town and stand there shooting? Stylish, sure, but I was expecting something else.

TL;DR

I put this on the Netflix list as soon as I saw the trailer. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t blown away either.

Stylish western that doesn’t break the mould in terms of story but crams in some memorable characters brought to life by a stellar cast. Let down by a plodding second act and long run time but worth a watch if you want a bit of western action.

Side note: Real people, fictionalised

The character are loosely based off real life people so you know I've got to go do some reading now. This twitter thread has a great overview but I need more. If anyone has book recommendations give me a shout.

The real characters made fictional thing always leaves me... unsure. On the one hand, I love being introduced to a host of interesting new historical figures who I now want to read up on. On the other hand, some of the characters are quite altered from their real life counterparts (at least from what I gather in that helpful thread) which might feel like misrepresenting them. I'm torn as it's one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction in general (or at least historical fiction that leans heavy on the fiction while using real people) but I also enjoyed being exposed to history I might have missed otherwise. Guess I'll just have to read up on the real history as well!