'The Harder They Fall' review: A Western unlike any other

WHAT IT'S ABOUT The Western "The Harder They Fall" takes real figures of the 19th century and spins them into a fictionalized drama about a gang rivalry, a boomtown and a lifelong quest for revenge.

Director Jeymes Samuel (who also performs as a singer-songwriter under the stage name The Bullitts) assembles one of the best casts imaginable for the picture, a rare entry into this genre in which all the characters are African-American.

The ensemble is fronted by Jonathan Majors ("Lovecraft Country") as Nat Love, a cowboy and outlaw who gets his old gang back together to go after the murderer of his parents: Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), a rival gang leader, who has taken over a town called Redwood.

Fellow cast members include Zazie Beetz ("Joker") as Stagecoach Mary, the great Delroy Lindo as Bass Reeves and RJ Cyler ("I'm Dying Up Here") as Jim Beckwourth. They're among the members of the Love Gang.

The Buck side of the fence features Oscar winner Regina King as Trudy Smith and Lakeith Stanfield, fresh off his Academy Award nomination for "Judas and the Black Messiah," e playing Cherokee Bill.

The movie, coproduced by Jay-Z and cowritten by Samuel and the veteran filmmaker Boaz Yakin ("Remember the Titans"), is in select theaters now ahead of a Nov. 3 premiere on Netflix.

MY SAY This movie operates on its own plane of existence, bursting forth onto the screen with a degree of confidence that rarely materializes on this scale.

It distills everything we have known about the Western genre into something that feels entirely new.

Spaghetti Western touches such as syncopated editing, split screens and stark jump cuts between close-ups blend seamlessly with powerful character-and-dialogue-driven scenes. Symmetrical framing and sweeping landscape shots combine with a larger revisionist ethos that calls it all into question.

There are shootouts rendered on the largest possible scale, edge-of-your-seat caliber heists and confrontations between the characters that are rife with tension.

The legacies of Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah, John Ford, Howard Hawks and other masters of the genre are all represented here but reconstituted in the service of a dynamic original vision.

Samuel, making his feature filmmaking debut, expertly carries the amassing of these archetypes into a form that's all its own.

A lot of that has to do with the extent to which he taps into his background by presenting it all within the framework of a musical universe. The characters sing on-screen not to serve a music video aesthetic, but to reveal deeper truths about who they are and the pasts they've shared.

In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, the characters would serve as little more than chess pieces to be arranged in the service of this visual and aural world.

But Samuel is too smart for that and these actors are too great: Elba, King, Majors, Lindo, Stanfield, and so many more, all experts at adding a layer of complexity to a scene's emotional landscape by doing nothing but looking a certain way.

Their efforts are enhanced by the hip-hop- and reggae-infused soundtrack — which includes a new collaboration between Jay-Z and Kid Cudi, and songs featuring the likes of everyone from Koffee to Cee-Lo Green. It plays more of a role than simply augmenting the action on screen.

The songs comment on the imagery by subverting it, further leveling the playing field between the conventionally good and bad characters to the point where it's clear they're all humans brought together in the service of one primary aim: Making a ridiculously entertaining movie.

BOTTOM LINE This is a great Western and an astonishingly accomplished debut film for the director.