When it comes to the particularly volatile and weird discourse in online film circles — which normally involves critics shouting down one another over their rankings of Hollywood Chrises or the merits of Tom Green’s filmography — the reconsideration and re-evaluation of the Black Western has, by far, been one of the best surprises of 2021. Thanks to a great Criterion Channel retrospective in the spring, a bunch of brand-new viewers were introduced to classics like Buck and the Preacher, Sergeant Rutlidge, Duel at Diablo, and The Legend of Black Charley, among a choice selection of other cuts, and it’s been wonderful to see what might be the most neglected and essential subgenre within America’s most potent form of self-mythologizing. But before anyone claims that the genre’s time has passed by, or that Quentin Tarantino is the only dude able to make a movie like that anymore (he made some good ones, but come on), along comes Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall like a Man With No Name rolling into town, a Black Western with an all-star cast, produced by Jay-Z, which will land on Netflix later this year.
To be real with you, we were sort of panicked when we read, with sleep-crusted pre-coffee-jolt eyes, the title of the email that Netflix sent out to announce that the release of the film’s first trailer on Thursday morning. Why? Well, we thought they’d remade the Jimmy Cliff classic The Harder They Come, which, while not by any means sacrilege, would have been semi-ill-advised given just how awesome that movie is. Anyway, this trailer looks cool as fuck, and features at least ten actors you probably have seen in something and liked before.
Take a look:
Here’s a synopsis:
“When outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) discovers that his enemy Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is being released from prison he rounds up his gang to track Rufus down and seek revenge. Those riding with him in this assured, righteously new school Western include his former love Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), his right and left hand men — hot-tempered Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi) and fast drawing Jim Beckwourth (R.J. Cyler) — and a surprising adversary-turned-ally. Rufus Buck has his own fearsome crew, including “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), and they are not a group that knows how to lose.”
The Harder They Fall will hit Netflix and select theaters at some point in Fall 2021. We suppose you could title an autumn movie preview with some sort of pun about that, but you’d probably get tarred and feathered by other film journalists for insulting everyone’s intelligence.