A ruthlessly efficient thriller fueled by boiling rage, Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge wastes no time setting the stakes. Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) is listening to metal music on his headphones, biking into the fictional small town of Shelby Springs, Louisiana, when a police cruiser crashes into him, forcing a tumble to the ground. He sold his car and a stake in a restaurant he had. With the resulting $36K in cash, he was on his way to bail out a cousin incarcerated for possession of marijuana. From the police’s point of view, he had been evading arrest over the two miles they’d tailed him. Despite only giving him a traffic violation, they enact civil asset forfeiture, seizing all of his cash under the suspicion it may be drug money. This sets the mysterious, resourceful, strong-willed Terry on a mission of combating this police corruption and overreach by any means necessary to make things right.
After the more moody, overwrought Hold the Dark, Rebel Ridge finds Saulnier firmly back in more streamlined Blue Ruin and Green Room territory, crafting a laser-precise story in which the audience is refreshingly one step behind our protagonist at every turn. The dialogue is as crackling as it is clever. Character details and plot points are conveyed visually rather than doled out in reams of exposition. There’s an exacting, methodical momentum to the slick cinematography by David Gallego (Embrace of the Serpent, I Am Not a Witch) and Saulnier’s editing, mounting a million roadblocks of racism-tinged bureaucracy that stand in Terry’s path as a tit-for-tat battle ensues. He only wants just enough to free his cousin, even offering a deal with police to get back just $10K for bail money.
The smarmy, entitled, and bigoted police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson in full ACAB mode) wants to keep the peace with his conniving Southern charm while undermining Terry’s mission at every turn. Despite Sandy’s best efforts, Terry continues outsmarting him, and Saulnier knows there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a racist, corrupt police officer get what’s coming. The only hiccup in the story surrounds court clerk Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), who befriends Terry and gets in over her head. If it’s admirable how Saulnier attempts to flesh out his supporting characters, her arc excavating a traumatic backstory stretches out a tale otherwise assuredly concentrated on Terry’s perspective.
Pierre, who first landed on radars with Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad and as Mid-Sized Sedan in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, gets a bonafide leading-man breakout role––an astounding performance built on a calm stillness with anger boiling under the surface. Terry stays noble in his goal of justice against a system concerned with anything but. Before his full power is unleashed, we get glimpses of his hidden skills as he catches fish with his bare hands and coolly comes into the police station to file a police report… on the police officer who took his money. A dart in his eyes brings as much suspense as a punch might, and we eventually learn his background with physical acuity in a feat of stellar crosscutting.
From the logline alone, comparisons to First Blood have surfaced, and while Saulnier is clearly nodding to the grounded, one-man-against-the-machine thrillers of that era, there is something distinctly modern about his approach. Shooting meticulously, with action refreshingly filmed in full frame and minimal cuts, Saulnier is also obsessed with the precise details of utilizing modern technology for how one can bring down a beast. In Terry’s path of retribution, it’s not just the police force that is complicit in a web of corruption––it takes a string of people excusing or ignoring warning signs. While Rebel Ridge hints at larger systemic issues that could be part of a million other small towns across the country, the film works best when solely anchored on Terry’s perspective. The experience is one of riveting twists, turns, and unnerving tension.
Rebel Ridge arrives on Netflix on Friday, September 6.
The post Rebel Ridge Review: Jeremy Saulnier’s Ruthlessly Efficient Thriller Unleashes a Powder Keg of Rage first appeared on The Film Stage.
