The Harder They Fall

Zazie Beetz in a big top hat :)

Rudimentary attempts to add some thematic complexity fail to conceal that this is just a simple revenge tale that plays out with mechanical precision. Dialogue is not strong enough, characters make inexplicable decisions simply to set up situations, and performances are variable. Jazzing things up with colour, music, onscreen titles and tightly choreographed movement only works in fits and starts. The overall result comes across as a bunch of actors playing dress-ups for their own amusement.

While I probably won't go to bat at arguing this is some narrative masterpiece, I do more than appreciate a movie allowing everyone to be so freaking cool. Each character gets their moment to be the biggest badass in the room and it rules. The film is bright and boisterous in its violence to make a great comic-book looking western.

Loose, stylish riff on Leone via Tarantino (with plotting perhaps too close to OUTITW) is a good fun time, though the film lacks a personal identity or point of view that may have made it a little more transcendent – it's an enjoyable imitation, but there's no real reason not to just crack out the real McCoy and be done with it. A terrific cast definitely maintains interest, with King and Elba a killer villain team, sustaining the film through some narrative wheel spinning in the final act.

Two outlaw gangs get in a scrap over some stolen loot and end up murdering each other to death in this odd Western. Full of obvious anachronisms and poor musical choices, this almost feels like a modern crime drama with cowboy cosplay. Elba and King are both in fine form as over the top villains, each getting to deliver a solid monologue in the second half...but one gets the sense that movie is trying to be too many different things at once, and it isn't terribly successful at any of them.

It's Warren G's "I Shot the Sheriff" music video for 2 hours. The director wants to mash up Django Unchained's cowboy with an Avengers team of heroes--complete with theme music and backstories that could be their own movies. But it isn't cool. As a western it doesn't show the racial obstacles or how people use the frontier to reinvent themselves. And the stock characters are boring outside of their robbing. You've seen it before, but the soundtrack is funkier--like The Wiz as a Western. Avoid.

There is plenty to enjoy in this modern take on the classic western. Beautiful cinematography and colour palette and a great soundtrack. Strong performances all round- interesting characters balance a somewhat predictable western narrative.

This is an all-action violent Western with music video pacing. Every 90 seconds there's a gun fight, stand off, fist fight, knife fight, bank robbery, train robbery or explosion. It reminded me of Tarantino in its style, but it is more fluff than Quentin's substance. The characters are flimsy and the action unrewarding and numbing because there are no stakes. We are not invested in any of the characters so it's sound and fury signifying nothing.

Jeymes Samuel, apparently the coolest motherfucker who ever made a Netflix debut, is in town. He loves his music cues, even produces them, loves staccato bloody violence, loves stares, loves pointed dialogue. And he can direct it. Now can he ever! A pity for this squad of interesting performers, but this film consists mainly of people threatening each other in various uncomfortable ways. And then some killing. You can bet that they fall down hard.

It wants to be a Blacksploitation - Tarantino mix, it seems. And it fails being either or em.

A simple revenge plot (with a subtly powerful thematic cap) relaxes back in favour of a long wander through a colourful revisionist west, which, with its admirable camerawork, unique design, and engaging final shootout, well satisfies. Long and meandering, but not a bad way to spend two hours.

It's a super stylish and badass and the music choices just underline both of those things. The cast is stellar, but when it comes to the story, there's not really enough substance there to fill in the entire running time. The movie could have done with some trimming, because even if the story wasn't special, it would have worked with the cool scenes and Tarantino-esque shots in a somewhat shorter form.

An excellent soundtrack propels a movie that slowly ups the stakes as the story progresses without testing believability. The action is well done and the plot is better than expected at the end. The only real flaws are that twice it tries too hard to be stylistic and embarrasses itself in its attempts to be cool, and the CGI blood was terribly unconvincing. Ah, to live in a world where every outlaw is as menacingly articulate as Stanfield's Cherokee Bill ...

It's not exactly hard to figure out who Samuel's favorite director is, and this is one of the better QT-inspired movies I've seen. But guys, for the love of everything that's holy, try to keep your movies around 100 minutes, please.

(A TOWN CALLED STRINGER BELL)

A mostly black cast western with many unique and gritty characters. It seemed like a bit of a revisionist history at times. The story was entertaining and it had several surprises and memorable moments. What seemed like very weak story points got tied together at the nice twisty ending. Worth watching.

I liked the soundtrack.

Even though it has an incredible cast that oozes charm this one didn't really leave an impact.Idris Elba and Jonathan Majors steal the show and share great scenes together.Most of the good stuff of the movie are linked to them.Some of the other actors feel a bit wasted or like they don't quite fit their roles.The action also is nothing special and the style of the movie didn't work for me.That in addition to a very distractingly stupid character choice, it all made for a lucklaster viewing.

They reincarnated Western so they can kill it again Harder.

I can say it's a good example of a modern western, but nothing more. The strong cast, interesting characters, and hilarious/tragicomic moments carry the movie.

Honestly, a contender for film of the year. Looks like a Western, has a great soundtrack, blends modern cursing with more old-timey dialogue. (It reminded me of The Wire at times, “yous equivocating like a muther-f***er”). Every main actor is great, their characters feel like real people with a stylised sheen on top. I already like Zazie Beats and LaKeith Stanfield from Atlanta, but everyone else does well.

It's okay for the genre - but I have the feeling the genre is often misunderstood. I saw it as an action-comedy set in a Western setting, mostly a typical revenge story. Naturally, as most movies in the genre, it fell short near the end. The so far untouchable antagonists suddenly became conveniently incompetent. Apart from that, it's fine.

The movie and story are pretty decent. But the choice of songs is super weird. One moment it is reggae. The next it is James Bond type of music. It does not fit the scenes most of the time and pulls me out of the movie.

Interesting but way too noisy. Good cast, would like to see them together in something better.

This is what I call a 'blink and you miss it' type of film. There's little in the way of strong plotline and its very much a visual action based film but its not a film I'm likely to remember much about or think about in the near future, or at all after seeing it. I liked that there's a strong emphasis on bright colours and the action scenes are well choreographed but I didn't feel especially strongly (emotionally wise) either in favour of, or against (annoyed/angry with) most of the characters.

Loads of great moments that just somehow fail to combine into a great movie. But at least it's cool.

A common script elevated by great acting, style and great soundtrack.

With a killer cast like this, I don't see why the film makers decided to lean so heavily on forging a unique stylized identity with this movie. The stylistic decisions only detracted from what was clearly a great collection of characters in a pretty well written western. Maybe next time, Samuel, but I have my reservations about how good a western can be made by an English director. Probably, could have said the same thing about Italians in the 50's, though.

I loved this. It had gorgeous visuals and the sound design was killer, and the performances were fantastic. Felt a bit like Tarantino at times

Couldn't finish. The script was so fucking dumb. The sets looked like sets. The directing was piss poor. Fuck knows why all these actors signed onto this. Also, way to go Jeymes Samuel for branding your name all over this turd. I didn't know who you were before this, but I sure do now.

Hell yeah! An all black people western is pretty freaking cool. Great cast, channels spaghetti westerns fairly well and has some pretty brutal moments.

A fairly uniquely stylish western though you can obviously see the influence of Tarantino's Django. The great cast are mostly given enough screen time with their characters, and the fairly standard 'revenge' narrative generally holds up well through to the climactic shootout. Nice looking and sounding too.

The Harder They Fall; karakterleri, oyuncu kadrosu, enerjik anlatımı, doyurucu aksiyonu ve müzikleriyle tansiyonu hep yüksekte tutan bir film.

It's got a great cast, pretty good action (with a strong final showdown), and plenty of style. The downsides are a handful of contrived moments, about 20 minutes of fat worth trimming, and oddly enough the sound mixing.

Pretty cool western. Great cast, clever dialogue and some dang entertaining shootouts.

Talk about style, talk about music, talk about cool. This is what Tarantino strives to be. I did not expect to like this one, but it was so damn cool.. I just loved it. White town? Perfect. I love films that know what they are and they abuse it to its core.

Nat Love, Buck çetesine karşı. Açılış sahnesiyle, seyirciye Western görsel şov sunacağını gösteren yönetmen, oyuncuların gücüyle de on numara beş yıldızı alıyor. Seyiri hoş, sıkılmadan izletiyor. Müziklerin ve şarkıların Oscar adaylığı alacağı film, kanlı sahnelerde gerçekliği yüzümüze çarpıyor. Kostümler de janti. Filmin sonunda, benim babam senin baban. Hey dostum, bu kasabada kimse yabancıları sevmez.

Lots of posturing with too many confusing and/or unsatisfying payoffs. But I love the ambition in creating a fictional collage of Black western legends.

worth a watch

Admittedly lacking in plot, the movie more than makes up for it with its atmosphere, dialogue, editing and above all else, it's amazing cast. No spoilers but the climax delivers one hell of a good and impactful twist that will honestly be the most memorable aspect to a movie made up of memorable characters, imagery and style. The story could have been worked out better and they easily could have cut the runtime by 20 mins at least, but there's no denying this was an amazing modern western!

Perhaps a little too gimmicky, but it's a very colorful and flashy western, entertaining us with pure fiction while teaching us the names of actual black wild west icons. It's an exercise in style that was a lot of fun to behold.

A fun, but often silly western w slick style and panache. Good performances without some tongue in cheek action and winks to films of the past. Not perfect by any means but the length didn't bother us which shows we were entertained throughout. 7.3