To all SNU students and faculty looking for something new to watch on Netflix, I have your answer, especially for those of you who are fans of action cinema.
Rebel Ridge stars Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond, a former US Marine who rides into a small Louisiana town with $36,000 in his possession. Part of it will go towards bailing his cousin out of jail, and the rest will be used to buy a truck to start a boat towing business and have a steady job. While he is riding into town, a police car intentionally bumps his bicycle, and through a process known as civil assets forfeiture, the cops in that car steal his money for the department and leave. What follows from there is Terry’s efforts to get his cousin released (which, for reasons I won’t spoil, is time-sensitive), as well as a cold war with the police department, led by Chief Sandy Burnne (played by Don Johnson), that slowly escalates to an explosive finale.
The film that I thought of most while watching Rebel Ridge was First Blood, which is the first film in the Rambo series. Those movies, as well as any piece of revenge cinema, often build to one giant action scene after another, where the hero murders any villain who stands in their way. What makes this film so special is that it never really becomes that, at least not in terms of the film’s body count. This story takes its time before the film really lets you know where things will be going, and I think that is to its benefit. Despite being over 2 hours in length, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s script is incredibly economical, efficiently setting up Terry’s plight, as well as every other character’s as well. He also has a fantastic eye for filming grounded action scenes, especially a remarkably tense getaway in a truck and the finale, which packs in some very nice surprises.
SNU student Mikey Butenhof, to who I recently showed the film, expressed that “the last plot twist concerning the police escort” was his favorite part of the movie.
Pierre’s performance as Terry is a revelation. No matter how badly he, or the audience, wants to kill these corrupt officers, he always takes the high road and finds another way, whether that be legal or simply less lethal because he is smart enough to know that more death will not get him anywhere. His charisma is a perfect combination of slow-burning anger, military-instilled respect, and desperation to make him sympathetic, and I think Pierre is going to be a huge star in the coming years. In fact, after suggesting to my dad, SNU alumni Barret Mash, that he watch this film, he came away with the assertion that “if James Gunn was looking for someone to play John Stewart (Green Lantern) for his upcoming DC Universe, this guy would be great.”
In addition to him, there are many great supporting performances. AnnaSophia Robb, probably most well-known as Bethany Hamilton in Soul Surfer, makes a great return to high-profile films as a legal clerk who is Terry’s one ally in the film. Johnson is a terrific villain with some surprising depth, not in a way that makes you feel differently about him, but in a way that explains why this man would be desperate enough to make these choices and keep making them. Finally, David Denman (aka Roy from The Office), Emory Cohen, and Zsane Jhe do very good work as some of the police officers under Johnson, each with their own different stances on the situation at hand.
I recently used The Echo to bang the drum for smaller films that I loved, but those are not always readily available for people to watch, especially college students who do not have time to make outings to movie theaters. This film, on the other hand, is available on Netflix, and quite a few students have it. In fact, I showed this to some friends a few days ago, told them nothing about it, and they all came away from the film being big fans of what they had just watched. This film works great as an action thriller but also an intelligent and angry exploration of what civil assets forfeiture is, as well as the governmental factors that can lead to police corruption. To everyone reading this, Rebel Ridge is one of the best films I have seen all year, and I implore you to check it out.
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