Jeremy Saulnier’s new thriller Rebel Ridge doesn’t waste a moment of time getting wound up. Immediately, Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre, in a terrific performance that ought to make him a star) gets knocked off his bike by a patrol car while heading into a little southern town to bail his cousin out of jail. Sure enough, the white cops threaten Terry with arrest and see fit to “confiscate” the bail cash before leaving him on the side of the road with little recourse. But Terry’s a believer in justice, so he bikes right into town and files a police report: the cops robbed him. This kicks off an increasingly tense, exceptionally well-constructed little potboiler that manages to be both exciting and timely.
The film’s nearly perfect pacing takes a back seat in a slowly ticking middle act wherein Terry finds himself caught up with a local court clerk (AnnaSophia Robb), who herself becomes a target of the slimy cops as she helps him uncover a conspiracy that runs a bit deeper than just a racially-motivated robbery. All of the power exercised against our heroes comes from an authority that truly believes that nobody can or will try to fight back. Saulnier punctuates the film’s ticking tension with action that is as ruthless and economical as his narrative structure. But don’t let that trick you — this isn’t First Blood, or even a Jack Reacher-style revenge story. Those courses mind seem very thirst-quenching to viewers, but although the racist cops here (including a charmingly menacing Don Johnson as the local sheriff) duly underestimate Terry’s skill at causing chaos and bodily harm and certainly deserve worse than they get, Terry doesn’t take a single life in Rebel Ridge. Rather, he methodically forces everyone else’s hand until they’re compelled, one way or the other, to do the right thing — the surprising non-lethal twist here makes for something especially remarkable.
But as impressive and intelligent as Saulnier’s guiding hand is to Rebel Ridge‘s success, a lot of this wouldn’t work without Pierre, though, who manages to convey patience and calculation even while consumed with anger. As the opening traffic stop scene unfolds, we watch Terry perfectly balance his frustration, indignation, insistence, and finally resignation, all without raising his voice or losing his temper. It’s less that he’s ahead of his antagonizers and more that he, in the manner of so many cinema heroes, quickly and calmly assesses every situation in front of him, and we’re able to read all of that on his face. And all of this is further punctuated by the fact that he’s also an imposing physical presence when it comes time to get down to some ass-kicking. In other words, Pierre is as fully-formed a new action star as we’ve seen in ages.
DIRECTOR: Jeremy Saulnier; CAST: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, Emory Cohen, AnnaSophia Robb; DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix; STREAMING: September 6; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 11 min.
