Comparing The Harder They Come And The Mighty Quinn

Throughout both films The Harder they Come and The Mighty Quinn the characters face many major choices to make. Both Ivan in The Harder they Come and Maubee in The Mighty Quinn faced difficult decisions that were caused by postcolonial-independence. Both films difficulties were stemmed because of the influence of other countries in theirs at the time. The Harder They Come features the issues Jamaicans faced in the Ganja trade, which was controlled by other countries. The Mighty Quinn features Americans that work at a local hotel. This film showed the hardships that the tourism brought about with the power struggle. There are both similarities and differences in how both characters, Ivan and Maubee, deal with these issues and make these hard
The movie begins with a hotel owner being dead. Maubee found him dead, covers up the crime and steals a lot of American money. After this, Maubee goes off making bets with it on the run. He did not go to the hotel planning to steal the money. Also near the end Maubee puts a deadly snake with the money because he knows he has been caught. There was no way for Maubee too know he would have to give the money up soon. Therefore it is safe to assume he did not know the American’s where on their way to place the snake in the sack. Maubee does this on impulse while Quinn has a gun to his head. All of Maubees choices where also based on impulse because of the money he
For one, Ivan choices become much more violent. In the begging of the film Ivan is not very violent. The first violent encounter he has is after the pastor kicks him off the property. Ivan returns to the property and ends up cutting a man’s throat fighting over a bike. It seems as though Ivan does not kill the man. Near the end of the film is where Ivan really turns to violence. First, an officer tries to pull him over while transporting marijuana. Ivan panic he shoots the officer. After being on the run, Ivan finds himself in, and out of another officer shoot out. Ivan then decides to flee Jamaica and tries to catch a boat but does not make it. He awakes on the beach surrounded by officers one last time. Ivan then chooses to shoot his last few bullets at the officers instead of going to prison. The officers then kill Ivan. Ivan chooses more violent paths than he needed too throughout the