The renaissance of the "black western" genre in James Samuel's debut film: cleverly filmed, but rather trivial.
Thug Nate Love (Jonathan Magers) had to grow up too quickly. When he was still a child, the Wild West storm Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) shot his parents. For many years Love hunted for the killer, but he failed to take revenge - Buck was imprisoned for life. Once the news spread that the government had granted Baku freedom. Together with the gang - Trudie Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (Luckit Stanfield) - the thug has settled in the city, which he once personally rebuilt for his people. Nate Love gathers his own team to defeat his nemesis. Sheriff Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo) and the owner of the saloon Mary, named Stagecoach (Zazie Bitts), go to a deadly duel with him.
Black Western is a genre with its own culture and tradition. It appeared in the 1970s as an opposition to the conservative "white" Western. At first, these were films in the aesthetics of "black exploitation" (for example, "Thomasin and Bushrod" in 1974), and later more serious films began to appear, it is enough to recall the "Detachment" of 1993. The themes of racism, the struggle for one's rights and identity have always been at the heart of the "black westerns". But, oddly enough, the genre gradually began to fade away in our time, and after Tarantino's "Django: Unchained" notable pictures appeared.
Netflix's debut director James Samuel's "The Harder They Fall" revives the forgotten aesthetics of the "black western". The action of the film takes place in a separate world, in which there is not even a trace of historical accuracy, there is not even a year of events - an important attribute of the classical genre. From the first minutes the director points to the absolute conventionality of what is happening, however, some of the characters in the film existed in reality: Nate Love, Cherokee Bill, "Stagecoach" Mary - evidence of them has survived. But director Samuel came up with his own biography.
Plotly, "The Harder They Fall" offers a rather trivial story of revenge. The protagonist Nate Love wears a cross-shaped mark on his forehead, left to him by the villainous blade as a child. However, he does not look like a typical avenger, for example, of a spaghetti western - such a terrible weapon in the hands of fate itself, as, say, in Once Upon a Time in the West. Nate is a charismatic cowboy, dexterous shooter and passionate lover who doesn't have much time left for self-reflection. Actor Jonathan Majers, known for the TV series Lovecraft Country, is able to stand with a gun in his hands and expressly deal with enemies, but as a character he, alas, is not of particular interest. However, the whole set of characters in "The Harder They Fall" does not go beyond the type: most are needed only to make ends meet at the right time.
Director Samuel is generally not good at drama, but this is not required of him. It is much more interesting for him to disassemble the western style on the shelves, to find some unusual visual solutions. And there is quite a lot of this in "The Harder They Fall", the picture sometimes resembles a comic strip or a music video. The scene in the "city of whites" turned out to be funny, in which the gang will have to please for a short time. It is not only inhabited by exclusively "pale-faced" residents of the Wild West, but the buildings themselves are painted white.
Unlike the overwhelming majority of "black westerns", "The More It Hurts to Fall" almost does not enter the territory of racism, only for a moment in this very "city of whites". In the world of the film, blacks and whites live independently of each other, they don't really have anything to share. This is a rather interesting twist in the mythology of the genre: black bandits sort things out with each other. Moreover, one of them - the character of Idris Elba - promises to give the brothers a "promised land" washed in blood. But Nate Love (surname speaking) prefers a different path.
Despite the curious background, not everything in "The More It Hurts to Fall" worked out smoothly. The action takes a long time to accelerate, some sentimental conversations between the characters could be removed without harm to the plot. But when the final skirmish begins, a lot falls into place. The murders were filmed stylishly, dynamically, here the actors show themselves much better. Although in the finale there is a feeling that Idris Elba was somehow not allowed to fully reveal himself, the potential of his character is much greater.
“The Harder They Fall” is the successful return of the “black western”. He has good stylistic moves and a wonderful cast - almost all of the best black stars in Hollywood. It is a pity that the director Samuel did not manage to come up with some kind of original story, to make a good, memorable exposure, so the tape is unlikely to become a noticeable phenomenon in the genre. But, most importantly, he recalled that the "black western" is alive and now is the time to revive it.
This article was sponsored by Simona Serban
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