| Netflix | Release Date: October 22, 2021 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
30
Mixed:
9
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
Nov 14, 2021
Almost every scene impresses, has something to say. How refreshing is that? It’s been a while since a major studio production entertained and enlightened to such a degree, with nary a wrong step, for over two hours. If you can stomach the violence, you’re in for a hell of a ride. Here’s to the Western revival. I’m all about Jeymes Samuel leading this gang.
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Oct 6, 2021
The Harder They Fall both subverts and embraces the Western tradition with some spectacular shootouts, slick dialogue, and a top-notch ensemble cast firing on all cylinders. Add a rollicking soundtrack to all of that and you’ve got fun and suave modern Western that smartly places a Black narrative squarely at its center.
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Oct 21, 2021
Even with all the shootouts and robberies and action sequences, this is also a wonderful showcase for screen-stealing acting, with virtually everyone in the all-star cast getting some center stage moments and knocking it out of the park. This is one of those movies where we sense the cast had just as much fun making it as we have watching it.
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Oct 25, 2021
Samuel, who is also a musician under the stage name The Bullitts, makes an auspicious debut as a feature filmmaker. He knows when to deliver the expected punch and when to add his unique flourishes. The Harder They Fall trots along with invigorating confidence, a vision keenly realized.
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The IndependentOct 22, 2021
Every aesthetic decision here seems carefully made, even down to the brightly painted frontier towns (the historically accurate choice), which play in jokey contrast to a literal “white town”, in all meanings of the phrase. That’s what makes The Harder They Fall feel so thrilling – it’s a film that exists in the past, present, and future, all at the same time.
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Oct 20, 2021
Oct 26, 2021
Oct 13, 2021
The Harder They Fall may not be the second coming of the Western genre, but it is a highly entertaining film with inspired performances by Majors and Elba, and a thrilling debut from Jeymes Samuels, who makes the case for more movies like this to redefine the Western genre for a new generation.
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IndieWireOct 6, 2021
This tense, propulsive, and ultra-glossy Netflix oater might lay a thick new Jay-Z track over the opening credits (of a film that he also produced) and assemble an Avengers-worthy team of obscure Black icons from across the entire 19th century into a single explosive shootout, but Samuel has little interest in letting his film be ascribed to fantasy or lumped in with the rest of its genre’s revisionist streak.
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The GuardianOct 6, 2021
Every shot, every scene, every exchange from The Harder They Fall is combat-ready and garishly tensed for violence – and Samuel certainly brings the freaky mayhem, with gruesome relish and high energy. My feeling, though, is that there is a diminishing return on it, and the big reveal at the end is slightly silly and somehow retrospectively discloses that we haven’t really found out enough about Rufus Buck’s backstory.
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Oct 6, 2021
The Harder They Fall is fueled by Tarantino-style energy and grim wit, and if nothing else, it’s a spectacle—those glossy, muscular horses, and the gorgeous people riding them, are almost enough to carry a movie by themselves. But this picture works so hard at entertaining us that it strips its own gears; its churning style can’t quite keep the story going.
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Oct 6, 2021
As a representative display of historical-but-reimagined players on well-worn ground, The Harder They Fall has undeniable pop, but as a movie needing character, narrative, and pacing beyond revitalized nostalgia, it’s all too often a bloody, showy mishmash that rarely holds its clichés and archetypes together with any lasting resonance.
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The TelegraphOct 6, 2021
It feels like a Blazing Saddles gag writ large – no bad thing – and the jab of Mel Brooks humour it provides feels considerably more inspired than the hackneyed split screens, freeze frames and wobbly zooms which are regularly deployed in the rest of the film for winking grindhouse cred.
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Movie NationNov 4, 2021
As he fills the screen with an A-list that includes Oscar winner Regina King, Idris Elba, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield and others, peppers the dialogue with a Tarantino-load of Samuel L. Jacksonisms and layers the soundtrack with reggae, hip hop and R&B, Samuel goes beyond parody and settles on just grating.
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