One Paragraph Movie Review: The Harder They Come

Two hundred and fifteenth film: The Harder They Come, the Jamaican film that introduced reggae and Jimmy Cliff to the non-Jamaican mainstream. This movie is a lot like reggae in that it’s a very familiar basic gangster plot — an unsophisticated kid comes to the big smoke, gets in with a dodgy crowd, shows some talent and moxie, becomes his own biggest fan, and is killed by the authorities in a blaze of gunfire. It’s Scarface with ganja. And much like reggae, I can see why people like it, but nah. One and a half silhouetted pipe/bong hybrids out of five.