VividSimon Simply Perfect

Steineded How sad is this?

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Prismark10 The Harder They Come is a seminal gangster film from Jamaica. It is not a very good film, being low budget with amateurish acting. Even some of the songs are recycled throughout the film.Ska legend Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan Martin, a young singer from the country who comes to Kingston to make a name for himself. In his first day in town he is robbed, he loses his bike and he realises to survive he better toughen up fast.He gets his bike back, he is punished by the police and he takes on the unscrupulous music mogul who exploits the artists he signs up (rather common in Jamaica at the time.)Before long Ivan becomes an outlaw and his record becomes a big hit but the police are on to him.The story is banal in places but the film has an infectious energy, it has attracted a cult following and is regarded for popularising reggae music to the world.Look out for a cameo by another Ska legend Prince Buster who plays a club DJ. Ironically both Prince Buster and Jimmy Cliff became Muslim converts.

eoinie de barra I love this film, few people could pull off the role of ivan with the swagger and cool that Jimmy Cliff brings to the role. He oozes charisma despite the down and out nature of his character. The film has a real tangible feel to it, bringing to life monumental themes of poverty and desperation and inequality. I heard the soundtrack of this movie before seeing it, it is a superbly complimentary and toots and the scene of toots and the maytals in the studio is fantastic especially for lovers of reggae, this also adds credibility to the story and the era, at times the film feels more like a documentary. Beware it is at times hard to comprehend what the characters are saying but this too gives the film an authentic Jamaican feel.

JoeytheBrit Jamaica's first feature film certainly left its successor with something to live up to even though, by more advanced standards, it's pretty raw film-making that lacks focus at times. Where the film does score is in giving the viewer an insight into a side of life that is hardly ever glimpsed – the crime-ridden slums of the impoverished island's cities and the tyrannical power of music producers over the country's music industry.Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan Martin, a country boy fleeced of his belongings within hours of arriving in the city to advise his mother of the death of her sister. Martin has dreams of becoming a reggae star, but can't find anyone to record his song and quickly finds himself depending on a local preacher who treats him harshly. This treatment gets worse when the preacher discovers Ivan is carrying on an affair with a girl he has possibly been grooming for himself. Ironically, thanks to the Machiavellian deceit of a big-shot record producer, Ivan finds himself sucked into a life of crime just as his music finally begins to take off.This film plays like a Warner gangster film transplanted to the Caribbean and infused with copious amounts of ganja. This being the 70s, it isn't Cagney or Bogart that Ivan models himself on but Franco Nero's incarnation of seminal spaghetti western anti-hero, Django. Probably the cutest moment of the film comes during its climax as director Perry Henzell intersperses shots of Ivan's come-uppance with the earlier shots of the cinema audience laughing and cheering at the carnage unleashed by Django and his gatling. The difference is, Ivan's guns are empty, and he is almost entirely bereft of principles or redeeming features. Somewhere during the course of the film he turns from victim to victimiser and yet Henzell expects the audience to retain its sympathy for him as he embarks on a cop-killing spree as bloodthirsty as it is pointless. Unfortunately, he and co-writer Trevor D. Rhone aren't skilled enough to pull it off.The soundtrack, as others have noted, is superlative, even though the tunes are not always played at optimum moments (what's Many Rivers to Cross doing there at some relatively insignificant moment to which it bears no relevance?). Gritty seems to be the word most other viewers choose to describe this flick, and it certainly has echoes of the meanest of the early 70s blaxploitation films. Had its production values and locale been more appropriate it may even have become the same kind of talismanic film that De Palma's Scarface became to urban gangster of the 90s.

jc-osms 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.