The Harder They Fall (2021)

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.

5.0 / 5

INCLUVIE SCORE

4.5 / 5

MOVIE SCORE

Representation

Black

LGBTQ

Women

teri elam

November 22, 2021

5 / 5

INCLUVIE SCORE

4.5 / 5

MOVIE SCORE

'The Harder They Fall': This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Spaghetti Western

*TW This film depicts graphic gun violence. Admittedly, I'm not a particular fan of westerns, though they give me a sense of nostalgia. They carry me back to Saturdays after Super Friends and Soul Train, where the background noise of a TV left on was a consonance of galloping horses, guns blaring, and twangy cadences. However, one exception might be Big Valley, a progressive show for its time, with strong female lead characters, Victoria Barkley (Barbara Stanwyck), the head of a family of ranch owners, and her daughter, Audra (Linda Evans), an independent equal to her brothers on the show. Still, far and few between...until The Harder They Fall, Jeymes Samuel's history-infused neo-spaghetti western. There's something to say about the positive impact of representation; even, as an adult. Plus, pretty much anything featuring Regina King, especially in leather gloves and a bowler, has me at "howdy." And from the moment after the last epigraph: "These. People. Existed.," the Black Ingalls saying grace over a mighty fine looking hen, cornbread, with a bounty of fresh herbs and vegetables in the backdrop; and a horse's neigh, with the ominous bang on the door—we learn this ain't your grandma's "little house on the prairie." And the narrative is set in motion, not slowing until the resolution in the third act. The inclusion in this film is "on 10," as they say, which brings me right back to the epigraph. Each character woven into this highly stylized yarn is a real deal Black superhero or antihero, as it were: Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), Gertrude "Trudy" Smith (Regina King), Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo), Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler), Cathay "Cuffee" Williams (Danielle Deadwyler), and Wiley Escoe (Deon Cole), etc. Like my old jam, Big Valley, The Harder They Fall has strong women leads—played by King and Beetz—situated in opposing gangs who actually take part in the most extended and consequential fight scene in the entire film, a noteworthy instance of equity and inclusion. Scene-stealer Cuffee is a fave and presumably represents LGBTQ+ individuals if my perception of a relationship or crush, at the least, between Cuffee and Stagecoach Mary is correct. This is underscored by their intimate exchange witnessed by Love later in the film, in which Mary asks as he stares a skosh too long, "what you looking at?"

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