As a boy, Nat Love (Chase Dillion) witnesses the death of his parents at the hands of the Rufus Buck Gang.  The boy survives, but not without a cross that is carved into his forehead.  Now grown, Nat (Jonathan Majors) is an outlaw with his own moral code to only pursue those who have done wrong themselves.  When news that Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) has been released from prison, Nat is faced with the moral decision to accept the pardon or deliver his own justice against the man that killed his parents so many years ago.   

The Harder They Fall, released by Netflix, is a popping and boldly stylized western directed by Jeymes Samuel and co-written with Boaz Yakin.  The easiest comparison would be to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), but that is not at all fair to the dedicated team of creators who make their distinct mark on Samuel’s revenge tale as it is far less abrasive than Tarantino’s despite sharing bold color choices, elaborate costuming, and adrenaline-pumping needle drops.  With a background in music, it is not surprising that the reggae-influenced soundtrack lends itself perfectly to the scenes, but the score is transportive to the windswept and saturated vistas, too.  

Samuel opens his 139-minute western in a standard way that sets the stage, but as the first act continues to unfold, it becomes a unique take on a timeless revenge arc.  It has all the trappings of the genre, but this handsome film never falls into being just another dusty, old western.  The production design by Martin Whist immediately shines through after the time jump that finds Love all grown up and hot on the trail of the remaining outlaws that killed his parents.  The showdown in the church tells us we are in for a thrilling ride that will not hold back with its overexaggerated gun blasts and blood spurting.  Despite it starting at such an intense level, the film continues to surprise at each consecutive set piece. 

The first major set piece comes in the form of a train robbery.  Samuel’s direction and snappy dialogue are on full display here as Buck’s gang strives to set their leader free.  As the antagonist, Elba is engaging and imposing.  Despite the limited screentime, he hangs heavy over the rest of the film as an ominous force.  The film is not without tension, however, as his deputy, Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), is slimy, ruthless, and always one step ahead of Love on his quest to avenge his parent’s death.  It is not hyperbole to call Love’s arc a quest, even using the most historical definitions as the script treats him like its own mythological hero.  With many of the lead characters borrowing names from real people throughout history, The Harder They Fall serves as a myth for these characters in its own right.  Structurally it follows many of the same beats as the lore of old as Love – played by the incredibly likeable Majors – makes his way from town to town in search of his nemesis. 

Each of the towns he visits has a very distinct atmosphere to them and it is rare, especially in the genre, to see a film lean so heavily on a robust color palette.  The reds and blues are striking, but it really becomes apparent when Love and his gang come to their penultimate stop: Maysville… it is a white town.  And quite literally, because Whist and his team made sure that every single inch of the sets in Maysville, all the way down to the gravel, is stark white.  The showdown here is a great segue into the finale as it jolts us back into the action after a long and simmering second act.   

The film rolls into the final showdown shortly afterwards.  It earns every shot, every punch, every blast as it is a culmination of everything that came before it.  Samuel pulls out all the stops in the shootout that keeps us constantly guessing who has the upper hand with his creative and fun camera work.  With a large cast all coming to a head, the ensemble management displayed in the preceding acts has plenty of payoffs for all of the characters.  While the main stage is taken up by Love and Buck, there is a long sequence in which the two matriarchs of the rival gangs, Mary Fields (Zazie Beetz) and Trudy Smith (Regina King), duke it out in a delightfully cathartic hand-to-hand tit-for-tat combat sequence.  While the film is motivated by the two male leads, it is Beetz and King that truly drive the narrative forward in phenomenally captivating roles; something mostly unheard of in a genre that favors its women to be seldom seen and much less heard.   

Through its composition, The Harder They Fall is the heralding of a new, bombastic talent in Samuel.  He injects a new life and vitality to one of cinema’s longest enduring genres, similar to Sergio Leone’s defibrillating shock in the mid 1960’s.  He is not reinventing the wheel here, but rather he is showing us familiar stories with a new lens and a new take.  Historically speaking, it is entirely within his right as upwards of 1/3 of the cowboys in the American West were people of color.  He is giving voice to a demographic that has been sidelined and marginalized for generations in favor of stoic, chiseled, white leading men playing hero of the American frontier.