MOVIE

The Harder They Fall, Netflix, 139 minutes, 2021, R

This movie, which shares the same title as a 1956 boxing film noir starring Humphrey Bogart, pays lip service to such real-life black legends of the Old West as Nat Love, Bass Reeves, Cherokee Bill and Bill Pickett, many of whom have yet to have their life stories told on the big screen has no interest in being a staid historical fiction. This is pure, ultra-violent B movie pulp in which attractive movie stars in pristine clothing trade barbs and bullets across a scrumptious Wild West playground (sometimes quite literally scrumptious—I’ve honestly never seen food, from the steaks to the fruit, look so tasty in a Western). The gunslinger’s aim is as perfect as his comic timing. It’s a glossy throwback that calls to mind Sam Raimi’s but is kept fresh by an unfamiliar cast for the genre—an all-black one.