THE HARDER THEY FALL
Trudy (Regina King), Rufus (Idris Elba) and Cherokee Bill (Lakeith Stanfield), ready to rumble.
★★★★
OUT NOW (CINEMAS), 3 NOVEMBER (NETFLIX) CERT TBC / 130 MINS
DIRECTOR Jeymes Samuel
CAST Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Lakeith Stanfield, Delroy Lindo
PLOT When outlaw Nat Love (Majors) discovers his nemesis Rufus Buck (Elba) has been sprung from prison, he rounds up his gang — Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler), Mary Fields (Beetz), Cuffee (Danielle Deadwyler), Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi) — to track Buck down and wreak revenge for the murder of his parents.
IF THE WESTERN has largely been the domain of grizzled white men both in front of and behind the camera, The Harder They Fall is a flip, fun, flashy corrective. Building on his previous work (his debut album They Die By Dawn & Other Short Stories), director Jeymes ‘The Bullitts’ Samuel (brother of Seal) puts pistols firmly in the hands of under-represented groups rarely featured in cowboy classics, and lets rip.