★★
“The Harder They Fall”
This gains something for novelty value, coming from Jamaica – a country from which I think I have only ever seen one film before, reggae classic The Harder They Come. It’s also so obscure, there’s no listing for it in the IMDb. Unfortunately, despite being available to watch on Tubi, the presentation leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in the subtitles. The film’s dialogue is in a roughly equal mix of heavily-accented English, and Jamaican patois, often in the same sentence. It feels like the subs were generated purely by an audio to text application, so the English captioning is spotty and there’s no translation at all for the patois. As subtitles go, they’re basically useless.
I was still able to discern the plot easily enough, though details like the lead character’s name remain a mystery, in part because of the lack of other sources of information. I’m going to call her Sister (Francis), in line with the title. She is a soldier, who is also responsible for taking care of her 16-year-old sibling, Blessing (Wallace). Unfortunately, Blessing has just confessed that she is pregnant, and worse, there are two possible fathers. Sister is less than happy about this. After confronting the young men, and getting nowhere, she goes to the police and convinces Officer Dibble (Vassell) to arrest them. This lasts only until the mother of one, Sonia (Russell), bribes Dibble to let them go, having failed to bribe Sister to drop the case.
It’s therefore up to Sister to make sure justice is served herself. She abducts one of the perpetrators, and makes him confess, an act which allows the case to go up above Dibble’s head. Sonia then pays Dibble more, to take care of Sister permanently, but her military training makes him no match. [To be fair, when he goes to see the men, he’s holding his hand-gun sideways, then tucks it into the front pocket of his jeans. Jamaican police are rather loose with firearms training, it appears]. She then repeats the exercise with Sonia, extracting a confession on video of her bribery, allowing her and Blessing to achieve closure, apparently deciding they will raise the child together.
It seems very basic, though given the subtitle situation, this is no bad thing. The first half in particularly is very chatty, basically an extended series of conversations: Sister & Blessing; Sister, Blessing & Dibble; Sister & Sonia; Sonia & Dibble. Director Brown doesn’t seem to have a lot of shots in his locker, so these have to sustain on the acting, and that’s a mixed bag. Francis and Russell are the best, and the scenes between the two guardians do crackle, but Wallace is unconvincing, and I was never particularly on Blessing’s side. [The sex seems to have been entirely consensual] I’m reluctant to be too harsh, since the presentation certainly doesn’t help. Outside of being a groundbreaking curiosity, I’m not convinced there’s much of note here.
Dir: Richard Brown
Star: Jessica Francis, Jayvia Wallace, Candice Russell, Andrew Vassell