History Film / TheHarderTheyFall2021

* IronyAsSheIsCast: Idris was cast in a Western and is known for at least a few Western-type roles prior to this movie, but he's allergic to horses. Cast members note that he constantly had to take Benadryl to cut down on the sneezing.

* RetiredOutlaw: [[spoiler:Nat discovers that his father was a cruel outlaw that turned [[StartingANewLife his life around]] and found god after killing his first wife. Nat later follows his father's lead, FakingTheDead and beginning anew with Mary.]]

* FemininityFailure: When [[spoiler: Cuffee]] dons a dress to make them appear non-threatening for the bank heist. They stumble upstairs and struggle to find their gun in the folds of their skirt.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Cuffee is short, slender, and has extremely big and childlike eyes for [[{{Bouncer}} a club's bouncer.]] They’re often called a "boy" because of this, but they are [[TheNapoleon perfectly able to kick out unruly patrons]] and serves as Mary's NumberTwo when they go on Nat's quest for revenge. Not too much older, though: they’re still younger than Nat, and presumably Mary.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Cuffee is short, slender, and has extremely big and childlike eyes for [[{{Bouncer}} a club's bouncer.]] He's often called a "boy" because of this, but he's [[TheNapoleon perfectly able to kick out unruly patrons]] and serves as Mary's NumberTwo when they go on Nat's quest for revenge.

* YoungGun: Beckworth; although he has one of the fastest draws in the setting, he tends to care too much about getting the reputation and accolades of being the FastestGunInTheWest. Reeves, Cuffee, and Pickett all warn that focusing on flashy tricks and looking cool are going to the death of him. [[spoiler:He's proven right when Jim challenges [[CombatPragmatist Cherokee Bill]] to a duel; the latter cares way more about not dying than being the best, so he has no problem shooting first.]]

* AmbiguousGender: [[spoiler: Cuffee's gender is left unclear: while they are biologically female, reveal their birth name as Cathay Williams and are surprisingly nonchalant with Jim gendering them as a woman, they claim Cuffee is their real name and Cathay Williams is the name they were born with, but doesn’t specify if the rejection of it is gender-related or (given their approximate time of birth) the rejection of a slave-name. Whether they are a trans man, non-binary, genderfluid or just a tomboy is unknown.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Buck’s sudden need for cash was motivated by his need to save Redwood from white developers association the territory transitioned to statehood. [[spoiler: With the money blown up at the end and Buck and his crew (mostly) dead, the town seems to be left without any financial backers and in utter shambles from the showdown.]] The heroes simply ride off and never speak of the town again.

'''Pickett''': It was just you, Jim.

After the [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar Civil War]], cowboy and former slave Nat Love reassembles his former gang to seek revenge against the man who murdered his parents.

* BankRobbery: The Crimson Hood Gang pulls one of these in the beginning. Nat’s gang happily take the loot off their hands. Later, [[spoiler:Nat’s gang is forced to pull another bank robbery to pay off the “interest” on the stolen loot to Buck.]]

* FemininityFailure: When [[spoiler: Cuffee]] dons a dress to make them appear non-threatening for the bank heist. They stumble up stairs and struggle to find their gun in the folds of their skirt.

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: During the scene where Buck’s gang kills [[spoiler: the soldiers on the train]], we are treated to slow motion view of [[SpentShellsShower the cartridges hitting the floor]]. This is unrealistic as all the shooters are using revolvers which retain spent shells until they are manually ejected (usually when reloading).

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Buck's gang claim their crimes are to gain funds for fighting the uphill battle of making Redwood a thriving black town in the postwar South. And they won't let anyone, including the [[IOwnThisTown people living there]], get in the way.

-> '''Cherokee Bill:'''You know, he might coulda said nincompoop.
-> '''Trudy:'''We ain’t no nincompoop.

-> '''Cherokee Bill:''' Why do they always count so slow?

* InNameOnly: In some cases. While, as the movie makes clear, all the principal characters are named after people who really existed, with occasional name drops of their historical titles, how accurate its depiction of those people is... varies. Few of the main characters were outlaws in life, some rather far from it, and most of the heroes were wildly re-imagined to fit more standard western character types [[note: Mary Fields, for instance, was famous for being the complete opposite of an outlaw, fighting bandits as a courier and mail driver, rather than the MissKitty bordello madame archetype she's depicted as here]]. This applies a healthy dose of AdaptationalVillainy to much of the cast, extremely in cases like Jim Beckwourth, and results in many of them barely resembling their historical counterparts.

* InNameOnly: In some cases. While, as the movie makes clear, all the principal characters are named after people who really existed, with occasional name drops of their historical titles, how accurate its depiction of those people is... varies. Few of the main characters were outlaws in life, some rather far from it, and most of the heroes were wildly re-imagined to fit more standard western character types [[note: Mary Fields, for instance, was famous for being the complete opposite of an outlaw, fighting bandits as a courier and mail driver, rather than the MissyKitty bordello madame archetype she's depicted as here]]. This applies a healthy dose of AdaptationalVillainy to much of the cast, extremely in cases like Jim Beckwourth, and results in many of them barely resembling their historical counterparts.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: With the exception of maybe Reeves (he’s still pretty ruthless for a USMarshall and not opposed to bending the rules to get his man) everyone in both gangs is an outlaw for one reason or another. Nat has a reputation of only robbing other outlaws, but he makes no hesitations in killing.

* OpenSecret: Cuffie’s biological sex as a woman. Beckwourth makes a huge deal when they strip to change into the dress provided for the heist. He’s quickly told he was the only one who hadn’t figured it out.