Harder They Come (1972) (import)

This bleak tale set in Jamaica grabs hold of you and does not let go.
The story is of a young man Ivan, based loosely on a real life newspaper story of the time, who comes from the country looking for work in the city. He finds only rejection and dishonesty, and is lured to a life of crime through having no other options. The oppression of poverty and corruption of the city oppresses him (and us the viewer) until he snaps, and embarks on a violent revenge to get what he feels he deserves. In the end, all he gets is a defining moment of violence in the final moments of the film. Westerns were popular in Jamaica at the time, and this is reflected in the moments of the Django movie we see Ivan watch with his friends, one of the few moments of pleasure we see him have. That movie moment is echoed effectively in the final scenes in helping us realise Ivans detachment from reality at that point.
The camerawork and locations are simultaeously obviously low budget and yet often brilliant. The hand held camerawork combines with some often excellent cinematographic eye for creating a canvas, portraying a real and vivid Jamaica that you don't see in the travel brochures. The locations were largely what they could use for little cost, and yet every one effective in adding to the tale and the background colour, often making this feel like a documentary of life in Jamaica.
The realism is helped immensely by the cast, most of whom you get the feeling are potraying real vignettes from their lifes and situations they can relate to. Jimmy Cliff is raw and full of the youthful energy his character is supposed to have.
The music is one of the defining characterisitics of the picture, and even not being a reggae fan, the music and the way in which the scenes are shot long before music videos existed take hold of you and don't let you be tempted to push the fast forward button.
Admittedly the film is dated, and the transfer to film is without any restoration and so appears washed out and full of scratches and marks - but somehow this just adds to the feeling of poverty and once you get past it, does not detract from the enjoyment of the movie.
Rent this not for a blaxpoitation movie or easy viewing, but for a defining moment in 70's cinema, in Jimmy Cliffs career, and in reggae music.

How can you love cinema or Reggae and NOT have this DVD?
One of the greatest movies - gritty, sharp and very uncomfortable.
Jimmy Cliff is brilliant, the music is awesome and the way that Jamaica and the politics of the time are presented is painfully accurate.

A work of real genius.

Whilst Christopher may be technically correct (see earlier review), I feel his review is very harsh. In fact I nearly didn't buy this DVD because of it. Thankfully I did and I'm very pleased with it. As he said the sound quality is excellent and the soundtrack is also supplied on a separate CD. As for the picture quality in my view it is also excellent. It's certainly far superior to my VHS copy (obviously) and leagues better than my 2001 BMG DVD release. With all the additional features as well I think it's fair to describe this release as the definitive version of this great film.

I actually contacted the company that released this DVD (Revolver) asking them about Christopher's comments and they responded with this very helpful reply; "The Harder The Come is fundamentally 4x3 (which is 1,33:1) as that is the way it was shot. However, for Revolver's release the 4x3 image is in a 16.9 format frame. Because of this, when watching it on your television it will appear with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Handily enough, this means on a widescreen telly, you can do a "movie expand" and blow it up so that it loses both these bars and appears as 16x9. The only way to make the actual film 16x9 full frame (aka FHA -1,78:1) is to arc it, which is extremely costly and you also risk losing some of the original image. It would not be of any real benefit in this instance because of the way it was shot...plus the same effect can be achieved by using the options available on a widescreen TV."

As I said I am really pleased with this definitive release of a classic film and I'm confident you will be too.