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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Harder They Fall, now streaming on Netflix and available in select theaters.
Netflix’s The Harder They Fall — created, produced, written and directed by Jeymes Samuel — depicts a fictional set of feuding outlaws wearing the names of real Black men and women of the post-Civil War West. Imbued with all the clever quips and blood-soaked action requisite to any Western, it also does not shy away from the ubiquitous quick draw standoffs that herald so many climactic moments specific to the genre.
There is an easy case to be made of who rises above the rest in the film, but the following will attempt to answer the question using a specific set of criteria. This takes into account speed but also how each cowboy performed within the four frames of the movie as a whole and also whether or not their real-life counterpart’s own historical exploits support or detract from the evidentiary case.
6. Nat Love
The outlaw hero of The Harder They Fall, Nat has a chance to go toe to toe with other desperados on a number of occasions. Just after the audience witnesses the carving of his forehead at the hands of Rufus Buck, the grown version of that orphaned boy is kneeling in a church, laying in wait for a man with a scorpion hand tattoo. When the Scorpion arrives, he is forced to put his neglected gun hand to the test against a man who has been dreaming of this moment. Love somersaults him rapid-fire into death’s embrace.
He also outdraws a man in Maysville during a bank robbery, who he convinces to step back from the preordained gun smoke destined to waft over his corpse, and the man obliges. During the Redwood handoff, however, is where Nat really shines. He seems to have a sixth sense as to where the men he wants to kill will be and pulls his triggers with urgent confidence, sidestepping buzzing rounds fired his way until ultimately dispatching Rufus Buck.
A common theme among some of these iconic figures is that they were relied upon to tell their own stories, and, in many cases, it has been born out that there were major factual discrepancies. In Love’s case, he has been credited for his skills as a cowboy, meaning he excelled at all of the equestrian-related skillsets, but his martial prowess is less substantiated. He was by no means a novice with the six-shooter, but the man of lore does not seem to resemble the man that was, as far as trading bullets is concerned.
5. Jim Beckwourth
Mr. Lightning with the Blam Blams himself, Beckwourth is one of the few characters in The Harder They Fall who proves his mettle as a quick draw artist in the purest sense. The Crimson Hood gang, and in particular the Brothers Grimes, are his entry into pistol badassery, but unfortunately, there are not a lot of other instances where he has an opportunity to prove himself within the confines of the film. He’s left out of most of the action until he meets his untimely and perhaps dishonorable death on behalf of Cherokee Bill’s impatience and disregard for societal gunfighting norms.
In real life, he carried Bloody Arm as a nickname because his hands were not a thing to trifle with, even when bereft of spinning twin revolvers. He forded new trails in the West, literally, and lived for years among the Crow Nation as a warrior first and later as a chieftain who led raids against tribal enemies. Much of his life, as dictated by him, lies in question, but his time as a feared man because of his facility with violence is well documented. If anything, his portrayal in The Harder They Fall is downplayed by his naïveté and youth.
4. Cherokee Bill
The Harder They Fall seems to reveal that Cherokee Bill was perhaps inflated by the stories that surrounded him and did not actually inhabit the rare air his admirers attributed to him. He never engages in a fair fight throughout the film, and certain key pieces of dialogue hint that his exploits are all founded on the same pretense. While assuredly quick, Cuffee’s assessment that Beckwourth is quicker appears genuine. He bemoans that he loves his countdowns at one point and later exhibits his disdain for them and the fools who abide by them. His kills come from behind and unawares, marking him as a survivor but not necessarily a silver hand worthy of renown.
Crawford Goldsby, otherwise known as Cherokee Bill, was a truly dangerous man. His father was a Buffalo Soldier, his mother was a Cherokee freed person, and he was an outlaw by the age of 18. Known for his mercilessness and willingness to dispatch anyone who stood in his way, he cut a bloody trail through the cattle states, escaped from Fort Smith and on the day he was hanged, his last words were, “I came here to die, not make a speech.” History and dramatization meet in the center in The Harder They Fall, etching the profile of a remorseless killer but not necessarily the marksman of his age.
3. Bill Picket
If there was a Navy Seal sniper of the rugged West, Bill Pickett was a Seal Team Six captain. From a god’s eye perch, he rendered final judgment unto any sinners who transgressed against his brethren like biblical lightning shattering lives from beyond the bright blue cloudless sky. Nestled in a crevice or crowned atop a building, his friends knew they walked under the veil of protection with him overhead.
Bill Pickett was the consummate performer. As a child, he became indispensable as a capable ranch hand, and, as a young man, he used his talent and experience to awe crowds across a young country while inventing some rodeo techniques like bulldogging and refining others like bronco busting. He became an actor who had to pretend to be Native American so that no one would think he was Black and remained a fixture of the cowboy era up until the day of his death and beyond. Still, any skill with a weapon was almost assuredly exhibitionist in nature.
2. Cuffee
Cuffee introduces herself on screen as a brawler ready with brass knuckles capable of laying low overconfident men with broad shoulders. In the streets of Redwood, she is a dervish of death, diving behind cover, clocking targets and cutting the strings of slower and less accurate gun hands. Her true moment comes, though, when she shames Cherokee Bill in squaring off and sends one through his carotid, demystifying his legend and building a case for her own.
Based on the remarkable Cathay Williams, Cuffee enlisted at the age of 17 and saw battle up close and personal at the Battle of Pea Ridge. She was the only known woman to serve as a member of the legendary Buffalo Soldiers and fought in the American Indian Wars for years before illness betrayed her hidden identity as a woman and resulted in her discharge from the formal Army. As a professional soldier in tandem with her quicksilver film depiction, she has a case as the second-best gun adept in The Harder They Fall.
Bass Reeves
Bass Reeves saunters through a maelstrom of whizzing lead as if he was armored in more than a flimsy tin badge. He never wasted more than a single bullet on any one would-be assailant and is the only person in The Harder They Fall that leaves the town of Redwood without a mark on their flesh. The movie never does a great job of positioning him among these outlaws in a way that makes sense, but his presence is undiluted swagger and cocked hammer confidence.
In this one instance, the man of history may be mightier than the myth. Though names like Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickock may ring out more loudly across the generations, none of them matched the accomplishments of Basse Reeves. As a United States Marshal, he patrolled and maintained the country’s most violent sphere of criminality. In more than three decades of service, he arrested more than 3,000 men and killed 14 in the line of duty. Once, he jailed 17 outlaws, alone, all at the same time and at no time in his life was he ever wounded in gunplay. The evidence for his title at the top of this list is clear.
To judge the gunslingers’ skills yourself, The Harder They Falls is on Netflix now.
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