The worst thing about Netflix’s mysteriously dumped thriller Rebel Ridge is its abysmally generic title. Sounding like some anonymous action slop that might star a lesser-known Hemsworth, one might expect that, along with a brawn over brains trailer and a barely existent PR campaign, it’s yet another one of the streamer’s low-impact time-erasers. But there’s far more here to chew on, a full three-course meal cropping up on a platform that usually distracts us with snacks, and one of the most damning arguments to be made against a film-maker of note partnering with them, a movie that deserved the very most somehow saddled with the very least.
Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, who broke out with Blue Ruin and then the magnificently gnarly Green Room, worked with Netflix for his patchy adaptation of Hold the Dark back in 2018, a film that did at least get a Toronto film festival premiere. His follow-up has found itself strangely adrift, denied even a token theatrical release and cruelly landing in the middle of fall festival season yet without a spot at Venice, Telluride or Toronto. Perhaps it’s the curse that started back in 2020 when production was halted just weeks after the beginning of Covid and continued after a restart in May 2021, which stopped again the following month when original star John Boyega dropped out. It took until the following year for everything to reassemble, sans Boyega, and now two years later, it lands without fanfare when it deserves a parade.
It begins with an immediately involving nightmare. Terry (now played by Old and Brother’s Aaron Pierre) is cycling down a rural road when a police car smashes him, forcing him to the ground. Vague baseless accusations are aimed (tension increased by race: Terry is a Black man interrogated by two white cops) and when his bag is searched, money is found. Terry explains that he’s heading to bail out his cousin but the cops will be taking the money anyway and he can file a complaint to get it back, a lengthy process that would put his cousin in danger: a key witness in a gangland killing trial heading to state prison with a target on his back. He’s then trapped in a convoluted system, up against both local cops with an agenda and a country that allows for those with power to easily, and legally, take advantage.
What follows is a curious and utterly compelling swirl of small-town western, Taken-adjacent action thriller (Terry is blessed with a very particular set of skills) and grimly of-the-moment social drama. What’s so remarkable is just how committed and accomplished Saulnier is at caring for each strand equally, a full-body workout for us as viewers, pulses racing and brains engaged, a two-hour plus saga that keeps us totally enthralled at every second. It might sound like low-level praise, but there’s such refreshing clarity to Saulnier’s writing – a ticking clock established, stakes set before being reset, ante upped and then reupped – and such maturity to how he controls the more heightened genre elements. The reveal of Terry’s background – a marine with an expertise in hand-to-hand combat – is something we’ve grown a little weary of, thanks largely to Liam Neeson, but here it’s handled with more realism and some humour, a portrait of a man keenly aware of his physical strengths trying to smartly use them within the confines of the law (there’s a fantastically well-choreographed scene of him first using his body to expertly gain control of an escalating situation).
Terry gains a partner in local law clerk Summer (child actor done good AnnaSophia Robb), who fills him in on the depressing intricacies of a broken legal system and helps him because she too is a victim of it. Saulnier’s laundry list of grievances is long but effectively, shout-at-the-screen maddening and crucially detailed without a heavy hand despite the many social ills thrown at us (it’s also a lot more fun than one might expect). There’s a rising tide of anger that’s impossible not to be swept up in (the feeling is at times reminiscent of binge-watching a string of John Oliver segments) and amplifies any emotional investment we already have in the human drama, thanks to Pierre and Robb. They make for an incredibly appealing and dynamic double act, bonded by shared fury and frustration, while as chief antagonist, Don Johnson is a suitably vile, yet never over-egged, sheriff. It’s a moment of real movie star arrival for British actor Pierre, excellent as an imposing man of means accustomed to politely playing ball until, when all else fails, all hell must be unleashed.
As suggested by his standout shootout sequence in Hold the Dark, Saulnier knows how to stage this final gun fight and throughout the film, his direction is stylish yet neatly understated (he confidently adds in unbroken tracking shots without smugly drawing attention to them) and he squeezes in more clammy suspense than most thrillers I’ve seen in the past year. There’s such electricity to Rebel Ridge – I just hope enough people get the chance to feel it.
Rebel Ridge is available on Netflix on 6 September
