Lejink Review of The Harder They Come

The Harder They Come (1972)

Original treatment of an old old story...

[7/10 · 19 August 2007]

Eminently watchable rags to well, rags story of the country boy coming to the big city to try to make his name as a singer and getting caught up in drugs, extortion and ultimately violence as his dreams end in a tragic shoot-out that's one part "Butch Cassidy" to one part "Bonnie & Clyde". Of course what makes this erstwhile hackneyed B-Movie Hollywood tale come alive is the transposition to Jamaica, the naturalistic direction and acting styles, and last but not least the superb reggae soundtrack with Cliff himself contributing many of the key songs. It's not too often in a movie of this type that the singer's "Hear my song" plea actually is in support of a terrific song ("Dreamgirls" mediocre soundtrack immediately comes to mind) but here when the record production team and session players praise up the title track, you know they're not kidding. The rest of his songs are great too, all attesting to some kind of human struggle, even the more languid "Sitting in Limbo" and of course the self - explanatory "You can get it if you really want". Yes the story gets a bit lost with characters of varying importance drifting in and out along the way but the sheer honest exuberance of the direction (hand - held camera shots to the fore) and obviously inexperienced acting troupe deliver a convincing movie experience. What a shame that Cliff's own star got eclipsed with the rise of Bob Marley - here he shows his considerable singing, song-writing and acting skills and as I say I'm sorry he failed to kick on in any of these fields after this triumph. By the way, it helps to have the sub-titles on if you're not au-fait with West Indian patois.