After a crackling start , Jeremy Saulnier’sRebel Ridge , Netflix ’s later original striking , falters . Its director does n’t seem sure what form of movie it should be , or how realistically it should present the consequences of unfair policing . This precariousness compromise its effectiveness both as an entertainment and as a study of social consciousness .
The movie stars Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond , a former nonlethal armed combat flight simulator for the U.S. Marine Corps . As the cinema opens , Terry is biking to Shelby Springs , Louisiana , with $ 36,000 in cash to bail out his cousin-german from the local poky . When cop stay him on false pretenses , Terry does everything he knows he ’s supposed to do as a Black humans to quash police force savagery . He ’s polite , calm , patient , and respectful . The pig let him go , but they seize his money , purportedly because they believe it ’s illicit , but really because they are little more than shakedown creative person with badges .
Note : This article moderate pamperer for Rebel Ridge and other films .
The movie starts out as intensely political
The opening scene dramatise two major issues with American constabulary enforcement : What Black people face at the hands of ( mostly ) clean police officer in America . And the very real outlet ofcivil asset forfeiture , where law enforcement can sequester private attribute on the suspicion that it ’s outlawed , without ever arresting or charging the possessor — and never return it . It ’s a provocative start for a mainstream action movie to engage these polarise red-hot - clit issues with this level of realness .
Terry needs his money back badly . His cousin is due to be change to the local prison for holding in a few days , where Terry fear he will be killed by the gang while in custody . He function to the constabulary station and inquire for just enough returned to him to make up the bail . Though the local police chief ( Don Johnson in vintage form , channeling every racist small - town fuzz in the story of the movies ) insults and threatens him , Terry is able-bodied to make a passel to spring his cousin . thing go from tough to worse when he retrovert the next morning to find that the chief has betrayed him . Before long , the cousin is shoot down .
Rebel Ridge isn’t Rambo
With the tenseness near boiling , it seems like a foregone conclusion that the movie will accede the familiar territory ofFirst Bloodand interchangeable films where the wronged veteran takes on the lowly - town cops in a private warfare . The irony ofFirst Blood , of course , is that John Rambo kill his countrymen with the science he ’s gain to defend them . Rambo became so associated with Reagan - era value that it ’s easy to draw a blank he was initially a farseeing - haired drifter resist the peace officer who would trample the rights he sacrificed so much to protect .
Terry regain himself in a exchangeable situation when his status as a grand former Marine open him slight deference . With the viewer ’s signified of scandalisation piqued by the police degeneracy , they are primed to live vicariously through a bloody taradiddle of justifiable retaliation . It ’s the kind of spectacular office that can get witness questioning how much fury they are uncoerced to tolerate in the face of injustice .
Parallels with Saulnier’s other films
Another grounds it seems as though Saulnier will sweep up blood - drenched payback is because he ’s done so in his preceding movies : the effective micro - budget revenge thrillerBlue Ruin(also featuring an excellent Don Johnson performance),Hold the Dark , andGreen Room .
Green Room , about a punk band targeted by Oregon skinheads after they witness a murder , is a freak show of gore and sadism . It ’s frightful , yet brilliantly well - made — on par with a chilling masterwork likeHenry : Portrait of a Serial Killer . Both movies unflinchingly present the worst of humanity from a sociological remove , feeling no need to offer comment .
defend the Dark , which star Jeffrey Wright as a wolf expert who travels to Alaska to serve solve a mystery , is not quite as visceral asGreen Room(few photographic film are ) . But it also feature lifelike force , as well as a bloody shootout between topical anaesthetic and rural constabulary enforcement ( the cops are the good guy in this one ) . The shootout , in which a twelve cops are deplumate to smidgeon by an M-60 , is as well - grass as any since the famous bank robbery gunfight inHeat , and the slaughter is even more brutal .
Despite this onscreen account — or perhaps because of it — Saulnier has said in interviewshe wanted to make a movie less repulse by pop than his former films . Terry , therefore , is no fuzz killer . He specializes in no - deadly scrap , incapacitate his opponents with martial arts , bean bag cannons , tear accelerator pedal , etc . It ’s commendable that Terry refuses to kill , though it does seem to mince the film a bit . If this is Saulnier ’s strategy to get the watcher to consider their own desire for onscreen bloodlust , then he ’s successful , but it blunt the impact of the film ’s overall message .
Ill-fitting genres
Instead of flee to the Wood to fell from Tree onto the heads of his foeman ( Roger Ebert jokedthat Rambo always seems to know exactly which tree the villain will stop underneath),Rebel Ridge‘s Terry come in into a partnership with a court clerk ( AnnaSophia Robb ) , and together they peel back the layers of corruption in local law enforcement , bear witness how the total town is fund by civic asset forfeiture . The middle acts attempt to weave the labyrinth closed book secret plan of a movie likeL.A. Confidential . Perhaps as a nod to Curtis Hanson ’s 1997 masterpiece , James Cromwell , who played the corrupt law police chief in that film , even appears as a compromised judge inRebel Ridge .
It ’s an restless alinement of writing style , but this advance has precedence in Saulnier ’s work . Hold the Darkis also a genre mash - up : law-breaking thriller , supernatural mystery , and wild adventure film , with bits of Iraq War movie thrown in for salutary measurement . LikeRebel Ridge , it ’s compelling , even gripping , for prospicient stretches . Also , likeRebel Ridge , never quite coalescing around one genre compromises its effectivity .
The mystery story unfold at the center orRebel Ridgealso drags down the footstep . The charged tension of the opening number foreclose the viewer from involve obvious questions about the plot of land , like where is Terry riding his wheel all the room from ? Would n’t a rental car have made more sense give the space he has to travel ? If he ’s had a brilliant calling as a Marine combat flight simulator , why is he now trying to save his centime working at a Chinese restaurant ? The owner of the eating house , while patching up Terry ’s gunshot wound , is divulge to have been a medic during the Korean War . But would n’t that make him something like 95 years old ?
The transmutation to fact-finding story not only slackens the tension and diverts the viewer ’s care with such questions , it undercuts the earlier pragmatism that has made the racist policing and polite asset forfeit feel so pressing and fearsome .
This implore the question of how political should a movie like this be ? Netflix characteristic productions are n’t exactly known for their societal consciousness or political incitation , though Saulnier has pronounce he wrote the screenplay with Tony Gilroy ’s 2007 picture show , Michael Clayton , in intellect . But few films balance thriller elements with social / political commentary as deftly as that film does , and it ’s a effort Gilroy pulled off again with the first season ofAndor(he’sreallygood at it).Rebel Ridgeleans into the political sympathies , but not far enough , or with the correct balance , to be the blisteringly realistic put-down of social ills it starts out as .
The ending doesn’t add up
The ending is a big letdown , not only because it fails to abide by the maverick spirt run across in the beginning , but because it also seems like a lineal rebuke of Saulnier ’s earlier work . The survivors inGreen Roomare happy to kill the people that killed their friends . There is no report that force can lead to empathy or destroy one ’s soul . InHold the Dark , the slayer head for the hills unpunished into the wild , literally leaving the sub to the wolves .
Rebel Ridge , in contrast , takes a last - bit turn that can almost be describe as Pollyannaish , as the villainous cops of a sudden determine to facilitate save the heroes just as all seems drop off . Small town Southern cops are too often presented as one - dimensional racist yokels in movies ( for a complex portraiture of a small town Southern copper , check outCarl Franklin ’s 1992 masterpieceOne False Move ) , and it ’s invoke that the basic goodness of some of them is affirmed here . But this twist is not set up in a way that ’s convincing . It leads to a last scene that is ambivalent at in effect , confusing at worst .
Green Roomis as tough rock as the grouping at its heart . It never flinches , arrest in and out tight , and delivers its energy in one free burning outburst . Rebel Ridgeis more like a double album by a successful banding given over to its own surplusage . There are some great racetrack for indisputable , but a lot of filler . Saulnier is at his good when he does n’t draw any punches with his material , and when he pick a genre and stick to it .
Rebel Ridgeis streaming onNetflix .
