Rebel Ridge

Proving that not all great indie directors have to shit the bed when they make their big Netflix movie, Jeremy Saulnier delivers a first-rate, old-school, intelligent action thriller that comments on contemporary issues without ever feeling didactic, simplistic, or lazy. After digressing into generic, dark, psudo-meditaive, instantly forgotten mediocre action fair with his first Netflix release, Hold the Dark, Saulnier's latest, gets back to the intelligent and thrilling intensity of his indie films Blue Ruin and Green Room. Like those amazing pictures, Rebel Ridge is a revenge thriller, but it's a whole different breed of revenge thriller.

Aaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a black man on his way to bail his cousin out of a small town jail in Louisiana when he gets accosted by cops who bend the law to cease his money as suspicious, knowing it will cost him more to pursue a legal case than the amount of cash they take. But Terry must make sure his cousin, who testified for the state to reduce his sentence, doesn't get transferred to a state prison as he will surely be killed there. Terry calmly attempts to explain matters to various branches of local law enforcement, but when these prove useless, he calmly explains how things are going to go down. The authorities don't take him seriously, but what they don't know is that Terry is one of those action film protagonists with a very specific set of skills.

What could so easily be a dumb revenge flic turns out to be one of the smartest action movies I've seen in twenty years. Part of what sets this film apart from typical shoot-um-ups is that Terry knows he's cooked if he kills any of the enemies that are out to get him. It's fortuitous that he's an expert at applying non-lethal force, but that premise never feels like a goofy gimmick, like the "don't kill anyone" directive in Terminator 2. It's critically important that this protagonist doesn't kill any of the people trying to prevent him from achieving his objective. You could say Terry Richmond is a zero-body-count John Wick or a less-than-lethal Jack Reacher, but the movie this film recalls the most, in terms of its thoughtful blend of well-staged action and sharp social commentary, is First Blood. Like the original screen depiction of John Rambo, Terry Richmond is a guy who just wants to be left alone, but when the small-minded, small-town authorities deem him an undesirable and start to fuck with him, they quickly discover they've fucked with the wrong guy.

The reveal of how the cops discover exactly who they're dealing with is an inspired sequence involving a wifi router in need of a reboot as the principal villain of the film, Chief Sandy Burnne (a perfectly cast Don Johnson), heads out of the station to face off against Terry. Saulnier knows what all great action writers understand, but what most of Hollywood seems to have forgotten for thirty years—an action hero is only as good as the villain he's up against. Johnson plays the Chief as a smart, cool, and even likable customer, and the screenplay wisely makes him, and many of the local cops serving with him, sympathetic on levels that feel authentic to at least some of the reasons why small-town American police departments are so corrupt. I wish Johnson's character had been more present throughout the film, rather than most of his scenes concentrated at the beginning and end, but I can't really complain because the screenplay is so expertly crafted we're always with our protagonist, and only thinking about what the bad guys are up to when he is.

The way Saulnier sets up his characters, how well he maintains suspense, the way the many sharp narrative reversals follow internal and external logic, and how exceptionally well the thematic subtext is integrated into the story remind us that, once upon a time, action movies were made by thoughtful filmmakers who had something to say. AnnaSophia Robb is fantastic as Summer McBride, the waifish courthouse clerk who teams up with Terry. As with all his characters, Saulnier brilliantly weaves her backstory into the plot's forward momentum, simultaneously commenting on the film's key themes with each piece of information we learn about her. This is how exposition is done, folks; it ain't a magic trick; it's what good screenwriting is! With this picture and Green Room, Saulnier proves himself as adept at the logistics of narrative construction as he is with blocking and choreographing elaborate action set pieces. With the film's constant requirement of discovering new and clever ways for the main character to disarm or otherwise neutralize his opponents, most often in broad daylight, Saulnier's mastery of geography and placement of multiple characters within cinematic space is on full display. The only disappointing aspect of Rebel Ridge is that it was released on Netflix and not in theaters, where this filmmaker's work belongs.