Also in the volatile mix is legendary US Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo). Only Buck has reteamed with his own posse – ‘Treacherous’ Trudy Smith (Regina King), Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), and more. So what we have here is a fictional revenge tale that entangles lives that, in some cases, never did cross, as Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) – aka Deadwood Dick – reconvenes his old gang, including former flame Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), to take down fearsome outlaw Rufus Buck (Idris Elba). But Samuel and his co-writer Boaz Yakin (Now You See Me, 2012’s Safe) aren’t past playing fast and loose with history themselves, albeit in less harmful ways. Many of the larger-than-life characters in The Harder They Fall are historical figures. Like Mario Van Peebles’ 1993 oater Posse, The Harder They Fall by Jeymes Samuel (aka London singer/songwriter The Bullits) looks to change things up and have a blast doing it, with its starry Black cast trading shots in thrilling sequences of stylized violence set to quality music. It’s estimated that a quarter of cowboys were Black, but you’d never know it from Hollywood westerns, which so whitewashed American history that Mel Brooks found provocative humor in having a Black man holding the reins in 1974’s Blazing Saddles. The Road’s Smit-McPhee also impresses, especially as his character grows more important in the film’s final, unexpected third. But at its heart is a brooding Cumberbatch, offering one of the shrewdest performances of his career. True, it has a tendency to meander and lands Last Night In Soho’s Thomasin McKenzie with an underwritten role. But there’s more to this story than jealousy and rage, as Campion drops hints about hidden love from the past that might well be a dangerous thing in cowboy country.īeautifully filmed (with New Zealand doubling for the States), The Power Of The Dog is surely Campion’s most elegant movie since The Portrait Of A Lady or even The Piano. Soon, he’s brutally haranguing Rose, who starts to self-medicate with booze, and ominously befriending Pete. When George meets and marries Rose (Kirsten Dunst), widowed mother to sensitive teen Pete (Kodi Smit-McPhee), it sends Phil into an apoplectic rage. The more bookish of the two, George manages the business while the rough-hewn Phil can more typically be found castrating cattle. Based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, its story dials back to 1920s Montana and into the world of the ranch-owning Burbank brothers, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons). Jane Campion’s first feature since 2009’s Bright Star is a subtle spin on sibling rivalry, repressed emotions and rural living.
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