An epic character arc, wall-to-wall reggae standards and a suitably strutting turn from star Jimmy Cliff are the hallmarks of this Jamaican crime classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 5, 2022

[Henzell conjures] Kingston’s bristle and chaos with a diamond-hard vérité, spiced with wit and lyricism.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 5, 2022

The reggae soundtrack throbs and crunches and shudders in concert with the raw energy of Henzell’s storytelling and Cliff’s performance, but this doesn’t preclude a shrewdly self-aware debate about representation.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2022

The movie turns into a feverish social-protest fantasy, and infectious charm and social convulsions mix badly.

| Dec 15, 2021

The Harder They Come is always exuberant, and sometimes strong, as casually surprising and effortlessly sinister as the blade sliding out of a gravity knife.

| Oct 2, 2015

With this 1972 cult hit, Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzell produced a proud, forthright indictment of national and personal corruption.

| Oct 2, 2015

Atrocious acting, amateurish camerawork and a hackneyed story line all make for one painful slog.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 5, 2012

The definitive postcolonial cult-movie musical.

| Jun 5, 2012

Perry Henzell emerges a director with a solid visual flair who can mix action and inchoate rage sans excess to give the film a taut pacing and use the local color and a basically predictable tale with a few new twists.

| May 27, 2009

A Jamaican classic with an awesome OST.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 2, 2007

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.

| Feb 9, 2006

Jimmy Cliff, a noted exponent of the native rocklike Reggae music, is natural and energetic in his movie debut as the ill-starred singer-gunman.

| May 9, 2005

The characters aren't consistent, and Cliff eventually becomes so unbelievable that we just stop caring. The movie's ending is an exercise in plot; its beginning and its music deserve better than that.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 23, 2004

The movie's critiques of the music industry, the ganja trade, and organized religion still ring true.

| Mar 10, 2003