Review by C.J. Bunce
Rebel Ridge. The previews looked like it was another remake of Walking Tall. Ten minutes in and it seems like another “wrong place at the wrong time” or “driving while black” cautionary tale. Then you think it’s really a reboot of First Blood. Then you find yourself wondering if the heroes are stuck in the middle of another Deliverance. No, wait, now it’s a Grisham/Turow law and crime thriller. It’s not quite The Equalizer 4, but star Aaron Pierre (Krypton) turns in a riveting performance that isn’t far off Denzel Washington’s decisive hero. It’s surprisingly a stunning combination of tropes from all of these movies. Action, crime, and enough real life drama to keep you glued to your recliner for 2 hours and 11 minutes? When was the last time a movie did that?
Ignore the bad title, it’s only the name of the location of the final stand-off and has nothing to do but confuse you into thinking the movie is either about southerners or something like Ruby Ridge (it’s not). Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier (True Detective) delivers a constantly pivoting script that is worthy of Oscar consideration. It should top your movie watch list, including anything in theaters this year. Rebel Ridge is streaming now on Netflix.
Pierre plays Terry Richmond. You’ll know very little about Terry. What matters is that he is formerly a stateside military martial arts Marine, who just sold his interest in a Chinese restaurant. We meet Terry as he is biking through backwoods Alabama (like the nephew in My Cousin Vinny?). He has his headphones on so he doesn’t notice a police car behind trying to pull him over. The cops ram him and knock him down. He has $36,000 in cash in his backpack that the cops confiscate as potential drug selling proceeds. Terry explains the money is his, and he’s taking it to bail out his cousin in jail. Too bad, say the cops.
At this point the aggravation kicks in. You start squirming in your seat because Terry is a victim, even if he might have been able to avoid some of the aggravation. You start to crave some revenge on his behalf. But this isn’t First Blood. Terry isn’t disturbed with PTSD. In fact he’s quite level-headed. What, if anything, will it take for Terry to fight back when a local police chief amps up the… unhelpfulness? Will you ever find out? That chief is played by Don Johnson, in both his most understated and possibly best performance ever. No, this isn’t a blood and guts revenge story. But it might be in the realm of The Pelican Brief. Just not boring. At all. And so what’s the MacGuffin? It’s actually something real and tangible.
In fact fans of The Rockford Files may find inspiration for the MacGuffin in an episode called “So Help Me God.” In short, the episode sees Rockford thrown in jail for contempt, in a real-life trap that was actually embedded in California law (until the episode helped escalate the need to change that law). I won’t reveal the MacGuffin of the movie, but it’s a similar problem.
Enter AnnaSophia Robb, most famous as a kid actor, as Summer McBride. Summer is a legal aid worker who almost has enough credits to graduate from law school and take the bar exam. In this small town she is the only one apparently around to help Terry navigate the legal framework to both get his cousin from being transferred to state prison–where Terry knows he will get killed for something in his past–and get his money back.
The only problem with the script is the story is contemporary instead of set say, in the 1970s, where you could see someone stuck in a world without instant communication, a cell phone, the Internet, etc. Terry at a minimum could just find a lawyer on his cell phone to come help him out of the fixes he gets into. Terry has options, but they never occur to him. Try to overlook that.
Look for David Denman (Bosch: Legacy) and Zsané Jhé (Black Lightning) as cops in Johnson’s police force, and James Cromwell as a judge. Keep an eye out for fantastic, underplayed stunts and fight scenes.
Bad laws, bad cops. Drugs, divorce, child custody. Arson, police dash cams. Local politics and economics. Rebel Ridge touches on a lot. But it’s also an action movie with plenty of excitement and surprises. Both Pierre and Robb inhabit some kick-ass characters here you wouldn’t mind seeing again. It’s one of the year’s most surprising, exciting movies. Don’t miss Rebel Ridge, now streaming on Netflix.
