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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Xenon
Salesrank: 13851
Released: August 22, 2006 |
| Our Price: $21.98 |
| Used Price: $22.41 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
WITH A PIECE IN HIS HAND HE TAKES ON THE MAN! Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff stars as Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin, an aspiring young singer who leaves his rural village for the city of Kingston, hoping to make a name for himself. Robbed of his money and possessions his first day in town, he finds work with a self-righteous, bullying preacher, and an unscrupulous music mogul who exploits young hopefuls. In desperation, the simple country boy turns outlaw, at war with both the police and his rivals in the ganja trade. Ivan’s dream of stardom soon becomes reality as he rises to the top of the pop charts and the most-wanted lists. This gritty, groundbreaking film brought reggae music to the international stage, made Jimmy Cliff a star, and demonstrated that music and art can change the world.
Description of The Harder They Come (includes Soundtrack CD):
Director-producer Perry Henzel's all-Jamaican-made 1973 classic, one of the most beloved and longest-running of all international cult favorites, fiercely expresses the live-wire Jamaican spirit--an impoverished Africa tuned to American radio. The film also incorporates an archetypal passion for "outlaw" justice common to American Westerns, which were a staple of the Caribbean theater circuit at the time. Released just 12 years after Jamaica achieved independence, The Harder They Come also reflects the disenchantment that soon followed a massive post-independence exodus from the island's country hamlets to the tropical ghettos of Kingston, where a more grinding urban poverty awaited. Brilliantly shot, directed, written, and acted, especially by singer Jimmy Cliff in the leading role and Carl Bradshaw as his archenemy, the film tells an anthemic Jamaican story to seductive rhythms of a soundtrack that became a reggae bestseller. Ivan, a country boy who dreams of fame as a singer, rides into Kingston on a rickety country bus in the opening scenes, only to meet with disaster heaped on disaster, always at the hands of those masked as friends. In a breathless defining climax, Ivan finally breaks from his passivity and begins to wreak his revenge. Soon Kingston's music Mafia and the equally corrupt authorities are after him, but like the real-life people's hero (a man named Rhygin) on whom this character is partially based, Ivan leads them on a maddening chase--much to the delight of the people--eluding capture until the movie's shocking final moments. --Elena Oumano
The Harder They Come (includes Soundtrack CD) Reviews:
The Harder They Come 
2009-06-15 - Great music! This movie has a little bit of everything to entertain you, comedy, tragedy, music, a photo journal of a place not so much like that I see everyday.
apocalyptic beauty
2009-02-14 - Just saw this movie for the first time last night, and it's still very much with me. I lived in the W.I. during the early 60's, not too far removed from this time and place. Jimmy Cliff, btw, was already a well known singer of reggae, and I recognized his name at once. The islands on which I lived were smaller, and in better economic shape than Jamaica, and so I never saw such intense, high density poverty, although even on BIM, where I lived, it was another world for a kid from the American suburbs to step into.
Visually, this movie is beautiful, and very much of the time and place. Look into the 3rd World, and pretend you don't understand the anguish and anger in these disenfranchised young people at your peril. To me, "The Harder They Come," is the kind of movie politicians all over the world should be made to watch. They might learn something, because the slogan "No Justice, No Peace, Know Justice, Know Peace" could easily be the subtitle. Ivan is robbed of his self-respect, his art--which is his music--and denied every honest way to make a living. Corruption and hypocrisy is everywhere, in the police force, in the church, in the government and military. Take a look at the news tonight, and there are the same angry young men, out on the streets, wrecking havoc. Frankly, it's not too hard to understand why.
So put your shanty-town ears on, watch and listen, and get a lesson about what's still wrong in our world.
More than intellectualizing, however, this is a terrific independent movie. It's raw and primitive. You can smell the back alleys, the careening buses and the mangoes. It's a powerful and incredibly moving film, completely honest. Make sure you get the album. The joy in the music will make you get up and dance, dance in the face of despair, dance and keep your hope alive for change.
A Triumph of Something or Other ...
2009-02-03 - ... Most obviously, a triumph of ethnographic portrayal of a "third" world-view, and a cinematographic triumph of capturing Caribbean squalor as a form of visual beauty. Also a triumph of acting by reggae singer Jimmy Cliff in the role of Ivan, the simple country boy who comes to the city to "get his share of what's his." It's such a feat of natural acting that no one who doesn't know Cliff personally will ever be able to imagine him other than as Ivan.
When I first saw this film, in 1974 I think, I accepted it as a Triumph of Defiance. Defiance of a corruption of authority and society that seemed endemic. Ivan was not a Robin Hood; he didn't rob from the rich to give to the poor. He operated entirely on libertarian self-interest, though unfortunately he wasn't exceptionally clear about where his better interests lay. He was a martyr, and perhaps we were meant to understand that being a martyr in such a world was triumph enough. The 1970s were the decade of outlaw heroes in films -- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, and many more -- all of whom seemed to perish in a blaze of defiant glory.
Most of those '70s films now appear as dated and shallow as "our" hopes for a more enlightened world through LSD and cannabis. Not so with "The Harder They Come"! This was a great film then and it's still a film with power. My interpretation of the Triumph would be chastened by experience with the utter failure of the libertarian outlaw world-view to usher in any millennial joys, but that's the mark of great literature, that it can be re-understood. The Harder They Come is great literature.
?Cult Classic? 
2008-10-30 - I bought this because I heard it was a cult classic. Not the greatest but it did hold my attention even though the dialogue was a little hard to follow. I wound up using the closed caption. The sound track is the best thing about this movie.
Good music
2008-10-06 - It was a good over view of the time period and background of the reggae period. I enjoyed the movie and the music CD since I am a fan of the genre.
