The Harder They Come

The age-old story of country boy, urban corruption, and a bad end. The guy is Jimmy Cliff, the city is Kingston, the bad business is the reggae industry, and the crime is killing a cop who's in on the 'ganja' trade. The film's tone is righteously angry, but it doesn't go for the easy targets: it views Cliff's image of himself as a hero as ironically as it denounces police violence and missionary-style religion. Along the way, it offers a richly textured picture of Jamaican shanty-town life, composed with a terrific eye for detail. The action is as gutsy as the well-integrated score, which makes the movie's Hollywood-style gloss a little anomalous, but the basic humour and toughness emerge unscathed.