Perry Henzell’s visceral 1972 Jamaican crime drama exists between the two moods of its two most famous tracks: the aspirational lesson of You Can Get It If You Really Want and the disillusioned downfall-premonition of the title song. The desperado here really wants it, really gets it, comes hard and falls hard. It’s a movie with Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde in its DNA, as well as Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western Django, which in one scene is shown getting a rowdy screening at a Kingston cinema.
Singer Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan, a gawky country boy who comes to the Jamaican capital Kingston yearning to be a famous reggae star, having lived with his grandmother who has just died; he is virtually penniless after handing over to his mother the paltry amount remaining from his grandmother’s estate, having assured her that this surprisingly small sum is due to her having wanted a “big funeral”. Swaggeringly laidback Ivan gets a job in a repair shop on land owned by the local church and soon takes a shine to Elsa (Janet Bartley), the demure young orphan parishioner being kept, or rather groomed, as a virginal “ward” by a hectoring, controlling preacher (Basil Keane) who is creepily planning to marry her.
