Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier wastes no time getting right into the heart of his excellent new thriller, “Rebel Ridge,” a reminder that the director of “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room” is one of our best working filmmakers when it comes to tense tales of good vs. evil. In the very first scene, Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre, a future superstar if there’s any such thing as cinematic justice) is knocked off his bicycle by a cop car. The small problem with the interaction that follows is that Terry is taking a sizable amount of bail money to spring his cousin from behind bars, so the cops see an opportunity to seize it, adding to the coffers of a corrupt smalltown operation being run by the slimy Chief Sandy Burnne (a great Don Johnson). The shady backwoods cops, played well by David Denman and Emory Cohen, almost look like they’re going through the motions, just taking something from someone they think won’t be able to fight back. They don’t know Terry.
The canvas of “Rebel Ridge” expands to include a court clerk (AnnaSophia Robb) who tries to help Terry and even small roles played by Steve Zissis and James Cromwell. But almost everything you need to know is contained in that first scene, a wonderfully taut way to open a thriller. Shot with precision by David Gallego and cut rhythmically by Saulnier himself, it’s a prologue that jolts the viewer to attention with its tense relatability and casual horror. How many times have these cops pulled this trick? And how could Terry possibly get his money back in time to save his cousin from what could be a death sentence due to the danger he faces behind bars? Again, Saulnier is working with a basic good vs. evil construct (like the punk rockers/Nazis structure of “Green Room”), but he imbues this one with echoes of both ’80s action movies and classic Westerns. Terry is the man on a horse who just happened to ride into the wrong town.
To his credit, Terry tries legal recourse, going to the courthouse and even the police station to file a report about being robbed … by cops. Of course, that doesn’t work, building to a stunningly well-directed sequence in which Chief Burnne discovers he may have underestimated this particular opponent. (It also contains perhaps the best use of Wikipedia in a thriller to date, as an officer [played by Zsane Jhe] reads about who exactly her boss has been messing with a few seconds too late.) Saulnier cleverly raises the stakes with each scene, eventually getting to satisfying shoot-em-up action that reveals his genre editing is so much better than most modern blockbuster creators. The action scenes in “Rebel Ridge” are beautifully structured, always keeping us aware of the geography, akin to how a great Western uses a saloon or rooftops above a dusty road to put us in the heart of the combat. Terry isn’t quite Rambo (although the “First Blood” comparisons will be inevitable), but Pierre plays him with a riveting degree of no-nonsense intensity. His military background has taught him to make a plan, then do whatever it takes to complete it.
“Rebel Ridge” is about many things, including a certain brand of Southern racism that always underestimates its target. But its most fascinating thematic undercurrent is a commentary on how modern policing hasn’t eradicated corruption as much as forced it to evolve. It’s about how a system itself can be used as brutally as a gun, whether it’s a deeply broken system of property seizure or weaponizing the insecure foundation of a single mother. A line here and a gesture there reference the modern encouragement of de-escalation, but “Rebel Ridge” makes the case that those techniques have merely pushed the escalation ones underground, where they’ve grown even more rotten.
It’s all ripped through with a dark sense of humor—a trademark of all of Saulnier’s films—that helps keep this admittedly long film humming. On that note, the first hour of “Rebel Ridge” is one of the best in film this year, but it does get a little slack in the midsection. By that point, Saulnier and Pierre have built enough goodwill to forgive the narrative sag.
Saulnier’s triple threat of direction, screenwriting, and editing is the greatest asset of “Rebel Ridge,” but don’t underestimate the degree of difficulty in what Pierre brings here, striking just the right balance of desperation and determination. It takes the former to challenge an entire police force of well-armed idiots; it takes the latter to succeed. Pierre has been memorable before in “Brother” and “The Underground Railroad,” but this is the best work to date from an actor I suspect we’ll be seeing for quite some time.
Most of all, “Rebel Ridge” is just a reminder of how thrilling it can be to see a genre piece with this level of artistry. As we come out of a movie season that’s often built around pure escapist entertainment and into the time of the year in which movies with serious subject matter vie for awards attention, it’s comforting to know there’s a filmmaker out there named Jeremy Saulnier who knows how to do both.
On Netflix Friday.
