The few words, appearing before the first image, are heralding. The story is fictional, but “These. People. Exist ”.
And here we are, immersed in a pure American western in which all the protagonists, men and women, heroes and (ultra) villains, good, bad and bad guys, are Afro-descendant.
Warning ! In the next 137 minutes, all the protagonists will kill each other, massacre each other, torture each other, steal tons of dollars, ransom each other, hate each other to the core. And like in any self-respecting western, they will also get drunk in smoky and messy saloons… in every sense of the word.
Another observation is that the two bands of black cowboys who clash are made up of individuals to be classified in the same category, that of outlaws. There are wicked ends and wicked ends, if we can put it that way.
We recognize the codes of the western, but the staging is unique. It is constantly crazy, supercharged, frenzied, hyper violent, “tarantinesque”, with a few winks, especially in the wide shots intended to bring out emotion, to the spaghetti western. The two important female characters, played by Regina King and Zazie Beetz, have as much lethal fiber as their male partners. The soundtrack includes hip-hop and reggae tracks.
The best idea of staging comes when one of the gangs has to attack a city bank in order to hand over a ransom to the other group of gangsters. The bank to rob is in a … white city. Where everything, absolutely everything, is white. As if the members of the production wanted to say, “Hey! Guys, white Hollywood men who have dominated the industry for too long, take some notes! ”
This daring bet is on the whole successful and entertaining. But you know what they say: too much is like not enough. We wanted to butter it thick. Too thick. The scenario stretches unnecessarily, the stories pile up one on top of the other as if we could no longer find the way out. In this context, the tics of some quirky characters end up getting on their nerves and some passages are more burlesque, therefore less credible.
The last frame of the film announces a sequel. Let’s wish it just as inventive and daring, but by tightening a few bolts.
In theaters October 22 and on Netflix November 3.
Western
The Harder They Fall
Jeymes Samuel
With Idris Elba, Jonathan Majors and Regina King
2 h 17
Consult the film schedule