The Harder They Come
| The Harder They Come | |
|---|---|
Original release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Perry Henzell |
| Produced by |
|
| Written by |
|
| Starring | Jimmy Cliff |
| Music by |
|
| Cinematography |
|
| Edited by |
|
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | New World Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
109 minutes |
| Country | Jamaica |
| Language |
|
The Harder They Come is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff. The film is most famous for its reggae soundtrack that is said to have "brought reggae to the world".
Enormously successful in Jamaica, the film also reached the international market and has been described as "possibly the most influential of Jamaican films and one of the most important films from the Caribbean".
Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin is a poor Jamaican man in search of a job. He leaves his rural home, after his grandmother dies, to live with his impoverished mother in Kingston. He meets Jose, who takes him to see Django, a Spaghetti Western. Excited by urban life, he tries to get work but fails. He finally gets a job after taking a broken bicycle frame and rebuilding it into a working bicycle, and uses it to run errands for a record producer. When the frame's legal owner insists that it is still "his" bicycle, the two fight, and Ivan slashes him with a knife for which crime he is sentenced to a whipping.
After this Ivan interests the record producer in a song he writes and performs, "The Harder They Come", but he only gets $20 for it. He dreams of stardom, but the stranglehold the producer has on the music industry condemns Ivan to work for a pittance. Eventually, Jose (played by Carl Bradshaw), one of the first people Ivan met after moving to Kingston, offers him an opportunity dealing marijuana, moving the drug from the country to the city on a motorbike. When Ivan complains about the pay and conditions, Jose informs on him to the police. On his next trip, when a policeman tries to flag Ivan to stop, he panics and shoots the officer.
Next, Ivan meets a woman in a hotel. While he is in bed with her, the police surround the room and try to capture him. He shoots his way out, killing three officers.
On the run, he returns to shoot and wound the girl he slept with, believing she and Jose betrayed him. He then finds Jose and pursues him, shooting at him, but Jose escapes.
Ivan returns to the countryside, but the police catch up with him, leading to another shootout and escape. Ivan seeks support from his drug-dealer friends, who help him hide out. The policeman leading the search cracks down on the drug trade, telling the dealers he will not relax the pressure until they give Ivan up. Meanwhile the record producer re-releases Ivan's song, which rapidly becomes a hit because of Ivan's notoriety. Enamoured of his new fame, Ivan has photographs of himself made holding two guns in gangster poses, and he sends them to the press. He also steals a flashy car and drives it around a golf course.
...
Wikipedia