THE HARDER THEY FALL

BY: Georgia Davis

Put ’em up, PROVOKRs. There is a new sheriff in town, and it’s Netflix’s The Harder They Fall, a western with an all-Black, star-studded cast. One look at this lineup will have you begging for an earlier release date: Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield, Regina King, Idris Elba, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., and Deon Cole.

The film is pegged as one of the most-anticipated of the year, even though we have to wait until the fall to see it. Majors (of Lovecraft Country) leads the cast as Nat Love, a cowboy who gets together his badass group of confidants to take down his enemy, Rufus Buck (Elba), who was broken out of prison by his two buddies (played by King and Stanfield). The plot is straight out of an old Clint Eastwood film.

 

“While I tip my hat to the Old West [aesthetic] and the movies that came before us…what I think is amazing about The Harder They Fall is that it’s totally new,” director Jeyems Samuel told Shadow and Act. “It’s totally new voices. Totally new storytelling, totally new portrayals. It’s totally fresh. I think the freshness of it makes it fit perfectly in the same way that when Sergio Leone made A Fistful of Dollars and had Ennio Morricone score it. It was just a whole new experience.”

The recently released trailer provides us with a glimpse into Samuel’s directorial debut. (Also, Jay-Z produced the film). Perfectly timed to a jazzy song, we open on a vast landscape where King and Stanfield break Elba out of prison. Then we come to the town where all of it will go down. The Beetz accompanies Majors, and together they take on the other crew.

But The Harder They Fall has much more to offer beyond its plot. Its all-Black cast is a novelty unto itself. Westerns have a track record of being one of the most racist and white-centric genres of them all. By putting Black filmmakers, producers, and directors at the helm, we’re bound to get a truly original take on a reliable style.

 

“I’ve been a follower of westerns since I was a child,” Samuel said. “I really, really loved westerns, but I would just see a really clear inconsistency with the portrayals of people of color, basically in the Old West and being such a fan of actors like Woody Strode, who was amazing in Spartacus but then you’ll see him pop up in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and he couldn’t get a drink in the bar. So I just grew up wanting to know more about people of color and women and all of these ideas of the Old West that I was not getting from the Hollywood movies. And so I would just buy books and would…uncover amazing characters–both heroes and villains, both men and women of all colors.”

 

OK, now back to the cast. It is a brilliant mix of people at various stages of their careers. Lindo, King, Elba, and Wayans, Jr. bring all of their experience to the industry. Meanwhile, rising stars Stanfield (who got his first Oscar nomination this year for Judas and the Black Messiah), Majors, and Beetz will likely get a considerable bump from this. Not that Stanfield needs it because he’s landing roles left and right.

 

Netflix, we cannot wait another second. So would you please not make us wait until fall for The Harder They Fall? We will be teeming with anticipation for the next few months.