‘Rebel Ridge’ is a Fierce, if Overwritten, Mashup of ‘First Blood’ and ‘Cop Land’
Jeremy Saulnier continues to make intense and uncomfortably real cinema
“Hey, man, I haven’t done anything wrong,” says Terry (Aaron Pierre stepping up his game as lead), a Black man sitting inside of a Louisiana police car, to two White officers searching his belongings. Just moments earlier, he was on his way riding a bike to post bail for his cousin in detainment, in Shelby Springs, when a police vehicle crashed into him from behind for no reason. Then they cuffed him, emptied his backpack, and decided to take the $36, 000 he had there in the name of a legal framework called Civil Asset Forfeiture. Cops can do that on an assumption that this money comes from, or is somehow involved in a criminal activity. No proof required. It's wrong, ridiculous, and infuriating but nevertheless legit — and they’re the law.
This is how Jeremy Saulnier’s new Netflix action thriller Rebel Ridge kicks off — an unmistakable homage to First Blood — with the intent to elicit the same reaction from every viewer: anger. Saulnier wants you to feel the rage that rises inside Terry rapidly coursing through your veins like snake venom. In this day and age, no matter who you are and what country you live in, witnessing police brutality and abusing their power will put you on tilt immediately. There’s nothing more enraging than injustice and undue treatment of an innocent person. Saulnier is an expert at pushing the right buttons to gain maximum suspense from such a situation — a foundation that every one of his previous films was built on.
That raw and potent tension is what drives Rebel Ridge throughout, climbing and mounting to a point when it becomes nearly unbearable. It’s the most effective feature of the film that will hold onto your attention like a beartrap as you anticipate an inevitably bloody and violent showdown between the two forces. But instead of taking the conventional route of a revenge movie, Saulnier elects to go in a slightly different direction (somewhat to the detriment of this fascinating setup that he crafted masterfully).
He delays the physical confrontation with the cops for too long and the suspense begins leaking out midway through while we learn an abundance of information about why these sleazy cops should get their comeuppance. At this point, our thirst for revenge is maxed out once the small town's chief of police (Don Johnson in vicious villain mode) misleads Terry and offers him a deal to walk when the damage he wanted to avoid by posting bail is already done to his cousin. By then, we want blood and headshots and bone crushing, anything that serves justice to what’s been done to our hero, in its most brutal and unhinged form.
But Saulnier believes the motive and backstory we got to wish hell on these sons of bitches aren’t enough, and Rebel Ridge all of a sudden turns into an alternate version of Cop Land (at least morally), slowly leaving behind the First Blood-like aesthetic to change it to something much more… tamer. No doubt, there's a low-key interesting story behind how these officers try to maneuver and outplay the legal system to get themselves a hefty retirement fund and unlimited power, but that’s not the narrative we were promised in the first hour. Even though with this shift the script becomes smarter and more complex than we might’ve expected, it also causes much of the intensity to deflate when we finally arrive at the action-packed finale.
Still, I'd be wrong to withhold credit from Saulnier for a firm-handed and methodical direction, as well as sharp writing, executing his vision on his own terms. But I must add that his raw and energetic style of conducting action scenes (Blue Ruin and Green Room are a clear testament to that) isn’t as hard-hitting and pulse-racing here as you'd anticipate from a talent of his caliber. That said, the final showdown between the small-town police squad and the protagonist does offer some satisfying and stylish bare-knuckle punches, gun fights, and a high-octane car chase that action aficionados like myself will enjoy for sure. Yet they won’t meet the bar the auteur set as standard in his previous work.
If there’s one area, however, where Rebel Ridge doesn’t miss, it’s the casting. In a wisely assembled cast of big and small names, everyone fulfills the potential of their role. As the lead, Aaron Pierre turns in his most confident and charismatic performance yet, owning every moment with a fierce and dangerous presence. In the opposite corner, Don Johnson rides the renaissance of playing shitbag lawmen of his late career, chewing tobacco and handing out threats like candy on Halloween. Yet the most despicable cockroach of a performance goes to Emory Cohen’s Officer Lann, a smug and heinous prick you feel the urge to kick in the face the moment he appears on screen. He's a trigger and knows how to be one. And then there’s AnnaSophia Robb’s Summer McBride, the moral compass of the movie, matching Terry’s desire for justice from a female perspective.
Ultimately, even with its shortcomings, Rebel Ridge works as a reinvigorating genre piece that untangles an explosive and thought-provoking narrative with a meticulous approach. Action flicks these days don’t get (or want) to be too smart, let alone uncomfortably realistic, but Saulnier once again goes all out to craft a unique piece of cinema with a message. His fifth feature may not end up as influential as Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood or a massive powerhouse like James Mangold’s Cop Land, but by drawing inspiration from both of those classics while growing a conscience of its own, Rebel Ridge solidifies that there’s still a way to keep this subgenre alive and well.
Rebel Ridge is currently streaming on Netflix.
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