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Rebel Ridge Review
Image Credit: Allyson Riggs/Netflix
Loading...Rebel Ridge, the new Netflix movie, is directed by the same guy who made Patrick Stewart a Nazi!
Jeremy Saulnier was also the director of 2015’s Green Room, an intense movie about a punk band being held captive by a cadre of Neo-Nazis after a show. And Patrick Stewart was the ringleader of the villains! If you have never checked it out, I definitely recommend that you do; I have written before about being a fan of it.
So knowing how good he has been in the past and seeing that Saulnier had a new movie out on Netflix, I was very interested in giving it a try.
Rebel Ridge is his newest offering, and it’s a movie that starts immediately, as the opening scene sets in action everything that is going to develop over the next two-plus hours. We see our protagonist, Terry, bicycling down the road with a police officer behind him. With Terry’s earphones in, he does not notice the cop, so the latter rear ends him and bumps him off of his bike.
In the ensuing meeting, the cops find Terry has $36,000 on him in cash to bail his cousin out of jail. The officers confiscate the money, leaving Terry to have to find recourse so that he can save his cousin from a stretch in the slammer.
Along the way, Terry meets up with a local county clerk named Summer who clues him in to the fact that there is something bigger going on in the small town of Shelby Springs than just two officers harassing him…
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS
+ Rebel Ridge really centers around the Terry character, and without a strong lead, the movie would fall apart. Luckily, Aaron Pierre is at the helm in the central role, and he is impeccable.
Pierre plays Terry as a respectful and quiet man, but there is always something beneath him. You can tell that, from the start of this movie, he has a simmering rage about his treatment at the hands of the Shelby Springs police department, but he is pushing it down to try to do the right thing.
As the plot develops, layers of Terry’s demeanor are chipped away. It’s not an all-at-once breakdown of his facade; he goes from level to level of losing his patience and respectfulness. Pierre plays this progression wonderfully, and he comes out of the film looking like a true star in the making.
+ The second Up is no less than that the movie is executed so damn well that it is gripping and intense for almost its entire duration. There is a bit of the third act that where it loses focuses, but we will get to that in a moment. But aside from that, Rebel Ridge is an absolute thrill ride of a movie that commands your attention.
The entire story of Terry’s interactions with and mistreatment at the hands of a local podunk police department is crafted to build and build in tension. The injustice is so palpable, that you’ll get pissed off FOR Terry as he tries repeatedly to speak softly and politely reason his way out of his trouble. And as he gets screwed over again and again, your own frustration will build.
It’s so well-handled that I sat upright in my seat as everything happened, and I was fully engaged in everything that happened. Well, almost everything…
– To save the movie from coming across as too political or controversial, there ends up being a reveal that the police in Shelby Springs are in on some big conspiracy. This isn’t just an All Cops Are Bastards storyline. It’s just that THESE cops are bastards because there is funding at stake.
On the one hand, this feels like a chickening out of the movie because it didn’t want to offend the Thin Blue Line supporters out there, so it had to find a reason as to WHY these particular cops are so heinous. And on the same hand, when you get into the third act and the exposition dumps are flowing, it all slows the movie down to a crawl.
One particular info unloading comes when Terry and Summer break into the home of the town judge, played by the inimitable James Cromwell. Unfortunately, he is given little to do than spew some tedious dialogue about what the police department is secretly up to.
This whole reveal feels out of place and unnecessary, and it grinds a truly great flick to a halt just when everything should be picking up.
– Finally and at last, Rebel Ridge delivers the action it seems to promise you from the word “go” when Terry lays siege upon the police force late in the movie. And it’s… fine. When you finally get to the big action set piece of the movie, it’s a good one, but nothing that felt like it was worth a wait of about a hundred minutes.
Terry throws a bunch of gas cannisters and subdues some of the evil cops, and don’t get me wrong: it’s not a bad sequence or anything. It just felt like it could have been a bit more impressive. And no sooner does it start than it ends as Terry drives off in a stolen police cruiser with Summer to get her medical treatment.
Like I said, it’s not terrible, but it felt like Terry deserved to go a little harder at the people who made his recent life such a living hell. But I also get the movie couldn’t have him just murderdeathkilling a bunch of cops and then still have the ending it does. So I’m torn… the climax probably makes sense, but I still feel like it could have been… “more” somehow.
