By [ad_1]
Let’s dive into an epic social justice moment in Netflix’s The Harder They Fall, which hides a sneaky Easter egg to the late Chadwick Boseman.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Harder They Fall, now streaming on Netflix and available in select theaters.
In Netflix’s The Harder They Fall, the Black Neo-Western pays tribute to the genre, while adding a bit of modernization to it. There’s a style similar to the likes of The Magnificent Seven, Unforgiven and such, with the feature-length directorial debut of musician-turned-filmmaker Jeymes Samuel, aka The Bullitts, incorporating reggae, hip-hop and more. However, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, the film sneakily honors a late celebrity: Chadwick Boseman.
After Boseman’s untimely death at 43, Hollywood was rocked as few knew of his battle. It left a mark on the superhero film industry, where he’s noted for playing King T’Challa, Marvel’s Black Panther. Netflix proceeds to give him a shout-out, as one of his last films was Da 5 Bloods, which touched on Black soldiers being ignored by history. The streaming service also had Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Disney +’s What If…? recently threw fans back to his memory as well, as Boseman voiced T’Challa in the multiverse series.
However, in The Harder They Fall, the Easter egg has a bit more sting to it as a train car is dedicated to Boseman and his activism on and off-screen. As the film’s first act honors movies like Inglourious Basterds, Trudy (Regina King) stops a train with her horse on the tracks. She then blows the driver’s brain open before taking Lakeith Stanfield’s Cherokee to find a prized asset onboard. He jokes that the driver didn’t deserve the bullet, because, while she thought he was going to call her a slur, Cherokee says he may have been trying to say “nincompoop,” to which Trudy responds her people are neither.
Empowered, in charge and having no time for racist insults, she walks past a car, intent on breaking the gang’s leader, Rufus Black (Idris Elba), out. On her walk, the homage is spelled out on one of the cars. It reads “C.A. Boseman” in big letters — a clear shout-out to Boseman’s full name: Chadwick Aaron Boseman.
As they get on the car, Trudy’s squad makes it clear they don’t have time for elitists and the shenanigans of white people — they’re here for their king and a man they see as a freedom fighter. It has a political edge to it, as they remind folks Black people are a big part of this Western world — something they weren’t afforded before in the genre, and industry in general. Thus, as this conversation transitions into violence as they free their guy, it feels like a kind of justice and an overall movement against conquerors and colonizers that many characters Boseman played in his career would be proud of.
See the glorious tribute to the late Chadwick Aaron Boseman in The Harder They Fall, now streaming on Netflix and available in select theaters.
About The Author
[ad_2]
