September 16, 2024 · Watch the official trailer
A Marine cycles down a lonely country road when he is abruptly struck by a police cruiser, handcuffed, searched, and has bail money for his cousin seized by two small-town cops.
For as much as this seems either surreal or outlandish, the first 5-10 minutes of writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s latest film “Rebel Ridge” is an enthralling, captivating, and upsetting entry point into a largely gripping revenge thriller that surprisingly turns into one of the year’s best films despite being unceremoniously dropped onto Netflix earlier this month.
“Rebel Ridge” stars Aaron Pierre as Terry, a man seeking to get back the money taken via a controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture from a small-town police department in order to save his cousin from a state jail sentence. His efforts lead him to stumble upon a much larger corruption within the system meant to protect the community.
Pierre has a power in the stoicism of his performance as Terry and his searing, piercing eyes often exude a brooding nature that accentuate the demonstrable antagonistic chemistry that he has with the police of Shelby Springs especially Don Johnson’s Chief Burrne and Emory Cohen’s Officer Lann.
The physicality of his performance becomes more understandable and clearer as key revelations about Terry’s background are revealed during a police investigation and the ways in which Pierre is able to close the distance between himself and other characters lead to some of the year’s most exciting and memorable action sequences even without a single gunshot being fired.
There’s a fluidity to the ways in which Pierre strides across the screen and the exhilaration in which Saulnier is able to capture Terry’s movements truly makes standout moments feel unique and engaging in a genre where simple blasts of gunfire over and over again have withered down the quality of a once compelling revenge genre.
Johnson brings a gravitas and command to the screen as Chief Burrne and as much as some filmmakers might push the actor to reach mustache-twirling levels of villainy, there is a method to the madness that comes out in Johnson’s performance. The nuanced, character driven ways that Saulnier create characters to be complex with clear motivations that seem at least some level of reasonable even in their controversial nature make for a much more compelling story than one might expect from films in the genre.
AnnaSophia Robb does a capable job with the film’s weakest lead character as a court clerk aiding Terry on his quest for justice and understanding. While at times her character can come across as either timid and scared versus an Erin Brockovich-esque investigator, Robb makes the most of her time on screen especially in moments opposite Pierre where they do develop a natural platonic chemistry achieving common goals.
Saulnier’s confidence as a filmmaker exudes in the ways in which he shoots both quiet moments and more intense action sequences, making the most of the film’s Louisiana locales and yet giving “Rebel Ridge” a very lived-in feeling.
Action sequences especially take on a life of their own in intense closeups where audiences clearly understand how quickly and efficiently Terry can disarm an opponent and render a weapon un-fireable. There’s almost an artistry in how Saulnier follows Pierre around a scene with a camera that accentuates the brilliance of Pierre’s physical performance but also showcases a style of action cinema that only has been rivaled in recent years by Chad Stahelski’s “John Wick” films.
It's somewhat easy and perhaps reductive to equate “Rebel Ridge” with the classic Rambo film “First Blood” or the first season of Amazon’s “Reacher” series.
But what sets “Rebel Ridge” apart is the specificity to which Saulnier develops and creates moments of exposition that explain in clear dialogue exactly why things are happening in a legal sense that makes the film feel exceptionally well-researched and specific to the overall message Saulnier tries to reach in the film.
Despite its undermarketed release on Netflix, “Rebel Ridge” is still among the year’s best films and perhaps the top movie in 2024 never to be shown on a big screen across major parts of the country, making it an exceptional piece of independent filmmaking worth checking out at home.
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