There aren’t many genres that have been revived, reinvented and rebooted quite as much as the western, with its long and storied history going all the way back to the earliest days of motion picture filmmaking, and persisting in some form or another for as long as audiences have been going to the movies. Far from the dormant genre that many consider it to be, the western has undergone many different iterations, whether it be the dashing and heroic Americana of John Ford and Anthony Mann, the subversive spaghetti westerns that were produced in Europe in the 1960s, or the movement towards more revisionist fare in the 1990s, which has been the most commonly found version of these stories to the present day. This is where we situate ourselves when talking about The Harder They Fall, the audacious directorial debut of musician Jeymes Samuel (otherwise known as The Bullitts), since this is a film that falls somewhere between a very traditional western, the kind we would see produced in the 1950s, but has the appearance and atmosphere of a modern take on the genre, with the film clearly being produced under the guidelines of a new movement towards adding a contemporary flair to these stories that have been wildly popular over the decades, but mostly historically reserved for certain narratives, something that Samuel and his sprawling cast and crew are actively protesting against in putting this film together. One of the year’s most entertaining films that is quite simply an explosive, enthralling revenge epic that is the culmination of a group of very talented individuals – both novices and industry professionals – coming together to tell a unique and deeply moving story that hearkens back to the glory days of a genre that has been proven to be anything but dead.

The Harder They Fall is a film that is built primarily out of ambition. The most common phrase used to describe this film is “an all-black western”, which is both true and reductive, because while this is one of the first mainstream instances of a traditional western told through the perspective of black characters (contrasting the fact that the genre has been mostly dominated by white viewpoints), there is so much more nuance than this tokenization of what is really a very traditional entry into the genre, where the only difference is the kinds of faces we see appearing on our screen. Perhaps this isn’t the right platform to dig too deep into the representation of race, especially in a film that was designed to subvert expectations about what a western hero should aspire to look like. However, Samuel doesn’t define this film along the same lines as other stories that merge the action-packed genre conventions with the historical context that would have been relevant to this particular time period – the legacy of slavery in particular isn’t prominent, which may have been a slight disadvantage, especially since the protagonist of this film was a former slave that took advantage of his emancipation to become a vigilante. However, while some may claim adding historical nuance would’ve bolstered the story, Samuel takes a different approach – just because there is an opportunity to say something, doesn’t mean it is his responsibility as a filmmaker to explore all avenues. The Harder They Fall is a fictional western that uses real historical figures as its subjects, which is an interesting experiment at the very least, and while it may not be particularly authentic (and some naysayers may just consider it the result of cobbling together several well-known, folkloric characters of African-American history), the sheer ambition in just telling this story in the first place, authentic or not, is what gives the film merit.

Needless to say, both in terms of intention and actual execution, The Harder They Fall is a wildly entertaining film that has one very particular aim that informed its creation – it wanted to be a thrilling and encapsulating adventure that isn’t all that weighed down by meaning. Far too many entries into this genre over the past quarter of a century have been too invested in plumbing for meaning, using the setting of the “Wild West” as an opportunity to incite conversations around any contemporary issue, almost to suggest that the same problems we face today could be found in the distant past. This often works well (and is the foundation for the revisionist western sub-genre as a whole), but it can sometimes be misguided – and The Harder They Fall seems to have been designed specifically to remedy this very problem. There is some degree of commentary that persists throughout the film, but not at the expense of the qualities that make it such an entertaining film. Samuel seems to be drawing from the peak of westerns, where a familiar pattern (a good-natured vigilante teams up with a ragtag group of rebels to take on a particular villain and their own gang) is employed, and followed almost to the smallest detail, which is where the film resides for the most part. Samuel doesn’t seem too interested in challenging this structure – not only does he clearly know what exactly works in this genre, but he is measured enough in his directorial approach to make sure that he never places the clear audacity that inspired this film in the wrong place. After all, he is a debut filmmaker, and there is always a safety in adhering to the more reliable qualities that form the foundation for a particular genre. It may lead to the film being somewhat conventional, and perhaps slightly unexciting from a narrative standpoint, but it fits well within the world that the director is carefully curating.

However, where the film does succeed wholeheartedly is in the characterization of its large ensemble of players. One of the most exciting aspects of The Harder They Fall was the cast, which is filled to the brim with some of the finest actors working today – you cannot look at a single frame of this film without seeing a recognizable face, almost to the point where choosing a standout is nearly impossible, since everyone is doing exceptional work, turning in performances that are strong enough to compensate for the weaknesses of the story, creating a balance that helps us look beyond the cliche and focus instead on Samuel’s exceptional development of these characters, and the actors who bring them to life. The ensemble can be divided into a few key categories – there are the promising young actors (such as Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz and Lakeith Stanfield), whose talents are only matched by the rapidity at which they work and which ultimately prove that they are well on their way to defining the next generation of movie star. There are the ever-reliable veterans (Idris Elba and Regina King), who turn in unforgettable performances as the film’s main villains, subverting their normally principled personas in exchange for the challenge of playing a pair of truly malicious characters who give the film nuance. Then there is Delroy Lindo, who is an institution unto himself, once again proving how he is one of the most magnetic and complex performers of the past few decades, tying the film together as Bass Reeves, a man who is too principled to be an outlaw, but also not blind enough to allow his territory to be overrun by criminals, leading to his own voyage to rid the world of the villains that threaten to overtake his authority. The Harder They Fall has such a strong cast, which has rightly been the main aspect on which the film is sold – and no one is more aware of the fact that he’s working with brilliant actors than Samuel, who gives absolutely every one of them something worthwhile, not wasting a single moment to showcase this impressive ensemble.

On a purely artistic level, there is a lot of merit in The Harder They Fall as well, as this is not only a great showcase for the actors’ talents, but also for the director to experiment with form alongside the subversive commentary that is part of the film’s narrative. The director collaborates with a wide range of creative individuals behind the scenes, such as hiring cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (who has steadily been ascending as one of the most interesting professionals to emerge in the field over the past two decades) to photograph the film, bringing these landscapes to life in a way that both evoked classic-era westerns, while still situating it in a slightly more abstract version of our world – the film is intentionally designed to seem detached from reality, which is clear from the opening moments, when the title card states “even though these events are fictional, these people existed”, proving how the intention of the film, as opaque as it may have been, was always to somehow expand on the limits of reality by playing with both narrative and tone. In addition to the impressive visual scope of the film, the aural landscape is just as impressive. Samuel, as we’re reminded throughout, is first and foremost a musician, and as we saw with another wildly entertaining directorial debut by a musician in recent years, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, someone who has mostly worked in the realm of music brings a new approach to the filmmaking process. There’s a peculiar musicality to the film – not only in the fascinating needle-drops that occur throughout, but also the rhythm with which the story is told, the gradual syncopation of dialogue and other sounds (gunshots, trotting horses) creating a beautiful cacophony of almost poetic violence, which works in favour of the film’s more revisionist aspects, which do coincide with the traditional elements, creating an unmistakably unique production.

The Harder They Fall is a tremendously entertaining film, but one that is understandably going to carry some degree of divisiveness, especially since there is a slight disconnect between the story and the filmmakers’ intentions, almost as if Samuel was trying to both capture the magic of the classic era of American westerns, but through the lens of a revisionist perspective, in which issues of race and identity could be addressed. It’s not a bad idea, and it certainly doesn’t lead to the film’s failure. Instead, it just makes us yearn for a more streamlined and consistent approach to the filmmaking, one with a more nuanced sense of self-awareness, rather than just an attempt to condense every unique aspect of the genre into a single film. It runs slightly long (a few scenes could’ve easily have been elided, as they were other too reliant on exposition, or not necessary in telling the story, really functioning as entertaining but inconsequential asides), and not everything fits in with the world Samuel is trying to create – but when we move away from needing this film to say something just based on the kinds of characters that are represented, and just focus on its intentions to be a thrilling, captivating western that is filled to the brim with action-packed sequences and a few well-placed twists and turns, then it becomes a lot more obvious that this was a film designed primarily to entertain, rather than to contribute to a film culture that always scratches for meaning, even when the aim is less to convey a message, and more to just allowing us to escape into the past, even if it is one that is intentionally implausible.