2021 has been a fairly stacked yr for the Western (just like the Angelina Jolie automobile These Who Want Me Lifeless, Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho, and the upcoming The Energy of the Canine), however nothing that’s come out to date offers the identical visceral thrill as the brand new trailer for The Tougher They Fall, a star-studded shoot ‘em up impressed partly by real-life cowboy Nat Love and the infamous Rufus Buck Gang. Directed by Jeymes Samuel (also referred to as a musician underneath the title The Bullitts, most notable for collaborating intently with Jay Electronica) the movie stars Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Lakeith Stanfield, and Regina King.
We’re thrust into the motion instantly, because the trailer opens mid-train heist with Trudy Smith (King) releasing Rufus Buck (Elba), who instantly dons the form of black hat that classically connotes villains in Westerns. From there, we meet Nat Love (Majors), an outlaw on the hunt for Buck who occurs to have a cross carved into his face that’s paying homage to 21 Savage’s well-known brow knife tattoo. Beetz performs Stagecoach Mary, the primary Black girl mail service famed for her taking pictures skill and having “the temperament of a grizzly bear.” Lakeith Stanfield performs a model of murderous outlaw Cherokee Invoice, whereas Delroy Lindo seems as Bass Reeves, “the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi.” (Reeves was additionally portrayed in HBO’s Watchmen sequence in 2019).
“It’s high-octane. We’re galloping, we’re taking pictures. We’re working. We referred to as it ‘The New West’ on set,” Majors told Complex in October 2020. “It’s the frontier that nobody’s seen earlier than.” Samuel, who told Shadow and Act he grew up an enormous fan of Westerns, stated that he at all times needed them to do extra to discover the lives of characters who aren’t white males.
“I simply grew up desirous to know extra about individuals of shade and girls and all of those concepts of the Outdated West that I used to be not getting from the Hollywood films,” he stated. “And so I might simply purchase books and would…uncover wonderful characters–both heroes and villains, each women and men of all colours.”
The trailer additionally offers us a glimpse at a brand new Jay-Z and Child Cudi collaboration, which performs midway by way of with the latter crooning what may be the song’s title, “My weapons go bang.” The observe sees Jay getting again in his biblical bag a la previous songs like “Lucifer” and “Heaven,” although the lyrics are somewhat powerful to make out over the fixed clatter of bullets. The 2 have beforehand labored collectively: Cudi seems on Jay’s Blueprint 3 standout “Already Residence,” his vocals are all all through Watch the Throne, plus there’s an unreleased remix of “Wild’n Cuz I’m Younger” Cudi still hopes to put out one day.
Jay, who has lengthy maintained an in depth friendship with Samuel, serves as one of many movie’s producers. With an October 22 launch date, we gained’t have to attend lengthy for The Tougher They Fall to return weapons blazing to our screens.