Netflix’s The Harder They Fall: Maybe Try Again?

Jeymes Samuel’s all-Black western had all the makings of a guaranteed classic, so how did I forget it so quickly?

13 min readMar 12, 2023

Ever have those films that you enjoy, but leave you with this nagging feeling? As if there was just one piece missing, one slip-up, one annoying, niggling issue that stops it from fulfilling its full potential in your eyes?

I get that a lot.

I got that when it became apparent that the complex and layered set-up between T’Challa and Killmonger would be resolved with a messy CGI catfight; I got it when it was revealed that John Boyega would serve as more of a red herring for Daisy Ridley to swoop in and do her (limited) best to lead the Star Wars sequel trilogy; and I got it bad after I watched Jeymes Samuel’s 2021 revisionist western, The Harder They Fall. (A revisionist western is one that uses classic western tropes and aesthetics to deliver messages and themes that we uncommon in the traditional western genre e.g. “idk maybe let’s not murder native Americans?”)

As Jonathan Majors continues his rise to the summit of Hollywood with roles such as Kang in the third Ant-Man movie, Dame in the third Creed movie, and the man who riled up Black incels everywhere by cosplaying as my third favourite One Piece villain (heal, my brothers); I thought it’d be fun to revisit the first movie I remember seeing Majors in: The Harder They Fall.

Unfortunately, despite it boasting a star-studded ensemble cast, a genius for a director/writer/producer, and one of the best soundtracks in modern cinema history which still remains a fixture in all of my Black Spotify playlists (racial segregation is good when I do it), it’s not a movie that I remembered as much as I should’ve.

There are three main things that I remembered about the movie itself:

One — That there was a huge missed opportunity, narratively-speaking,

Two — That this was another entry into the “Oh, I guess Zazie Beetz is Zazie Beetz-ing in this one too” cinematic universe,

Three — Too many Black people die in a movie where the true enemy should be a group of rich white people.

Upon re-watch, the first hour of this movie had me questioning if I was more of a hater than I already knew myself to be.

It needs to be emphasised: Jeymes Samuel is a genius.

His directing and shot compositions left me in awe at multiple points in the opening hour, the visuals were striking, powerful, and full of Sam Raimi-esque use of over-the-top zoom that I’ve grown to love. The set piece in which Idris Elba’s Rufus Buck is freed from his prison is masterfully done.

The dialogue is so sharp and fun, fully embracing the spirit of the old-school spaghetti westerns that I remember watching with my uncle as a child, while also finding the perfect balance of period-appropriate language and subtle anachronistic embellishment that allows the all-Black cast to add their own flavour to the proceedings.

One of my favourite exchanges from the film is as funny as it is simple:
“I am sweet.”
“You’re not sweet.”
“I’m sweet.”
“You’re not sweet.”
“I’m sweet.”
“You’re not sweet.”
“Bitch, I’m sweet.”
Just masterful writing.

As previously stated, the soundtrack and its use in the film is first class, Jeymes mixes reggae, soul, and hip-hop into the film so expertly that I still believe westerns and Black music are a match made in heaven. It’d be easier to name the songs on the soundtrack album that I don’t still adore but some of my highlights include Alice Smith’s somber Wednesday’s Child; Ain’t No Better Love, sung by Samuel’s brother, Seal; Barrington Levy’s old-school reggae banger Better Than Gold; as well as Kid Cudi and film producer Jay-Z’s Guns Go Bang. These are just some of the unforgettable bangers you’ll find in this film, and Samuel has a hand in all of them!

At risk of sounding like a character in Bell-Air, this film is a true showcase of *Black excellence*.

Speaking of which, we have to talk about the performances.

Jonathan Majors leads the line-up as the infamous outlaw with a heart of gold, Nat Love, playing the character with a level of charm, cheekiness, rage, and depth that you can expect from him every time he appears on the screen. Love is backed up by his reliable partners: RJ Cyler’s Jim, a sweet, cocky young quickdraw, obsessed with looking flashy and cool and who also has some of the funniest lines in the film; and Edi Gathegi’s sharpshooter Bill, another entry into the “Edi Gathegi shouldn’t have died in this one” cinematic universe.

(“Adapt to this…” YEAH DARWIN, ADAPT TO IT. WHY TF CAN’T YOU???)

On the other side, we have LaKeith Stanfield’s Buffalo Bill, who legit is just Darius from Atlanta if he decided one day that his new thing is being a cowboy (I liked him tho); Idris Elba’s Rufus Buck, the stoic villain who Elba manages to eek swathes of menace and depth from despite barely speaking; and, my personal favourite, Regina King’s Treacherous Trudy Smith, the brains behind Buck’s operation, who carries herself with ferocity, poise, and authority while also sounding so much like Riley Freeman trying to be a cowboy, I found myself imagining what a western-themed episode of The Boondocks would be like.

The cast is rounded out by Deon Cole’s Wiley, who, in a film where we see someone get shot in the cheek, still manages to have the most squeamish scene; Delroy Lindo’s grizzled sheriff Bass Reeves who is the western equivalent of that uncle you’re pretty sure killed somebody at least once; Danielle Deadwhyler’s delightful & deadly Cuffee, a definite highlight among the cast; and…

*Sigh*

…

We’ll get to Zazie.

I’ve honestly lavished so much praise on this movie, it seems wild that I didn’t have a more positive impression of it on my first viewing.

Unfortunately, the second half of the movie makes what we in the media industry like to call “some choices”, and it has what we haters like to call “some issues”. Chief among them being…

*Sighs*

Okay, let’s get to it.

Zazie Beetz looks, feels, and acts completely out of place in this movie, her romance with Majors’ character is dull, and the narrative decision to have her be captured to drive the plot forward requires some utterly bizarre and nonsensical decision-making on Mary’s part. Everything about her in the film is just so jarring.

From the minute she’s introduced, Mary feels off. Maybe it’s the fact that in a movie full of actors who effortlessly immerse you with their performances, Beetz very distinctly feels like the only person who is visibly trying to act; maybe it’s the fact that she’s playing a character who is extreeemely dissimilar to her real-life counterpart; or maybe it’s the way in which the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too by portraying Mary as a shotgun-toting girlboss who definitely isn’t a damsel-in-distress, before having her make the inexplicable decision to covertly gain info on Rufus by simply… walking into his town and… talking to him? And… becoming a damsel-in-distress in the process??

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely against every cliched damsel-in-distress, I think Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane Watson is still the best superhero movie love interest despite the fact that she’s seen as the archetypal damsel that writers use as an example of what not to write.

However, when you combine Beetz’s off performance with the weird deep Southern voice she puts on, as well as the narrative decisions that center around her, she becomes an issue with this movie that is hard to ignore.

I couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly what my issue with the Nat x Mary romance was initially, but since I started my Black rom-com novel binge in September I’m now able to put it fairly simply:

“ Former lovers who did all of their courting offscreen and spend most of their on-screen time together will-they-or-won’t-they-ing about whether they’ll give it another shot “ is a sh*t romantic trope. Stop doing it. Just stop. I’m not even going to go into it.

…

I JUST THINK IT’S FUNNY HOW every writer knows the age-old mantra of “show, don’t tell” but still they immediately go with a romantic trope that literally just tells you that these two characters have courted and were in love. There’s a recurring thing where Nat keeps trying to give Mary a wedding ring but fails every time, and it’s just like… cool. Anyway…

Let’s move on to the main conflict: Nat Love Vs Rufus Buck.

The film opens with a young Nat having dinner with his mother and father before Buck interrupts their nice family by quite rudely murdering Nat’s parents in cold blood and using a knife to scar the young boy for seemingly no reason. The rest of the film deals with Nat’s obsession with gaining revenge over the people responsible for the most traumatic moment in his life.

Now, while Love is on his quest for vengeance, Buck is more concerned with trying to salvage Redwood, an all-Black town that he presides over, after he learns that the town is at risk of financial ruin and subsequently being acquired by white people.

So herein lies my big problem: Why is the movie not about this?

There seems to be this odd trend in modern Black movies where the looming threat of white people is hinted, but the characters instead focus their fury on each other or other minorities, killing multitudes of their own people in the process. This is pretty much the plot of both Black Panther movies.

Quite frankly it’s hard to sympathize too much with Nat when most of the tactical blows he lands on Buck serve only to bring the citizens of Redwood closer to their impending gentrification.

I think it’s a bit telling that Buck’s gang is introduced as the villains by threatening, hurting, and murdering multiple white people on a train, some of whom are racists and almost all of whom are either armed or pick fights with them. The film attempts to throw some moral ambiguity into the mix by revealing that the officer of the Goddamn law who was guarding Buck was quite the unscrupulous man, and Buck’s release was entirely legit but this scene is heavily contrasted later in the film by Nat being forced to rob a white bank. Nat takes special care not to kill even the white people who are armed and racist towards them, or the ones who try to get in his way, solidifying him as “the good guy” as he shows more care and grace towards white civilians than he does towards any of the Black ones he comes into contact with. This then acts as the prelude to a lengthy action set piece where all of the Black characters slaughter each other.

Buck’s introduction largely shows him as a ruthless tyrant but a man who is also working to build a town where he believes that Black people can truly be free, and he’s even willing to murder his own townsfolk and shake them down to get it.

The problem with this motivation is that it almost feels like I’m watching two separate movies. When Nat and Rufus finally have their stand-off, all of the death and fighting are so utterly pointless that it takes a long monologue from Buck and new plot information to give the conflict any kind of real emotional stakes. Our hero and villain feel like they’re in almost two completely different plots until they’re arbitrarily pushed together.

While Nat’s obsession with revenge is generically interesting and makes for some great action set pieces, it also doesn’t seem like the most pressing issue in the film. The fact that Nat’s hatred of Buck only goes one way doesn’t really help things and when the two finally meet face-to-face, it almost feels anti-climactic because Buck doesn’t seem to have any skin in this particular game or desire to win. We’re told that his victory will come from making Nat the kind of man who would gun down his own brother, therefore dishonoring their father’s legacy (oh right, they’re secretly brothers, SURPRISE!) but this rings hollow because we’re only told of the abuse that Rufus suffered at the hands of their father through some last-minute exposition. A character who is perfectly content with dying at the hands of another and offers no resistance is an effective feature usually when that character has absolutely nothing left to lose, but Rufus above anyone else in the movie has something that is worth fighting for: Redwood and its people. If he’s so content to die at the hands of his brother, why even bother showing him fighting for Redwood, and *why* get so many other people to fight and die for a character who doesn’t seem to care all that much about the result of the conflict?

Maybe that’s the point: maybe I’m supposed to come away from the film reflecting on the sadness of a brother killing a brother, the hollowness and cost of Nat’s revenge. and all the Black-on-Black violence and devastation, but I don’t think the film sits with this long enough for that to be an effective takeaway.

The concept of Redwood had the potential to be a fascinating departure from the usual narratives on Black capitalism and Black excellence that we’re usually exposed to by the Black millionaire/billionaire class especially; this narrative that special Black individuals will rise to the top of a white system and use those new connections to liberate us from the top-down (one of those Black capitalists, Jay-Z is a producer in this movie, funnily enough). It would have been so interesting to explore what it actually means to be a town for and by Black people in the wild west; the struggles with protecting it, keeping it prosperous, a glimpse of what it looks like to have a town in which Black people self-govern and own their resources, the difficulties of holding together a community in a genre so often defined by survival of the individual.

I’m not saying this is what I expected from a movie released in an era where we’re still looking at lies beyond the phenomena of achieving Black excellence by being seen in traditionally white genres or spaces; I’m not even sure if the above ideas would make a better movie; it’s just a shame to me that so little was done with Redwood and Mr. Rufus Buck himself.

For the entirety of The Harder They Fall, the sheriff corrects anyone who calls Buck the devil, insisting over and over that “Rufus Buck ain’t the devil”. Okay, great, I’m assuming that refers to the fact that there are more dimensions to Buck’s story and character, but damn, can you show us??

When Mary and Nat ride off into the sunset having buried Bill and Jim (who clearly gave their lives for some bullsh*t), this ending doesn’t feel at all satisfying, I’m instead wondering what the point of this film was.

For me personally, if all of this death and destruction had to happen, I would’ve preferred for it to have been a tragic tale of two brothers fighting over the ownership of Redwood and destroying each other and the town in the process.

I mean that’s just me compromising, my real dream ending would have been the two crews teaming up to take down the white people trying to encroach on their haven.

It just seemed like a waste to have Nat and Rufus’ gangs simply kill each other over a sibling rivalry.

So as I come away from The Harder They Fall upon my second watch, my opinion remains unchanged, while I still have a massive love for the movie, I also still left it wishing it had gone in a slightly different direction.

With all that being said, when considering how this film has almost faded away from the public consciousness, it’s important to remember that many people did not see The Harder They fall in cinemas. I can only imagine just how much more the striking visuals and booming soundtrack would have stuck with me if on the big screen.

Maybe that’s the takeaway from all of this: Let The Harder They Fall try again on the big screen.

Or maybe I’m just a hater, idk.

P.S. — I don’t know why they based these characters on real people instead of just making new characters, look up the real Stagecoach Mary and laugh with me.