Review: Star-making performance propels Netflix revenge thriller ‘Rebel Ridge’

In Jeremy Saulnier’s “Rebel Ridge,” a “Rambo”-inspired riff on racial profiling and the insidious banality of evil baked into American policing, the filmmaker demonstrates his mastery of the taut action thriller. His skill with this subgenre has been on display since “Blue Ruin” (2013), through “Green Room” (2016) and “Hold the Dark” (2018). But in “Rebel Ridge,” Saulnier’s examination of space and pace transcends anything that has come before, as he coolly alternates extreme control with bursts of explosive fury over the course of two-plus hours.

It’s in this cadence that Saulier’s M.O. snaps into focus: his formal cinematic expression as a reflection of his protagonist’s state of mind. The story and style of “Rebel Ridge,” which Saulnier wrote, directed and edited, centers on Terry (Aaron Pierre), a man caught in a crushingly quotidian nightmare that spins out of control. Pushed to his limit, Terry maintains his cool, until he doesn’t, and it’s a thrill to watch how Saulnier lets this character off his leash.

In a star-making performance, Pierre is terrific as a man with a particular skill set thrumming below his composed, placid surface. With golden eyes, velvet voice and smooth gait, Pierre is like a puma prowling across the screen, but ultimately his character’s temperament is much more like a rattlesnake — coiled and ready to strike when threatened.

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The plot engine of “Rebel Ridge” is the law enforcement practice of civil asset forfeiture. In the opening sequence, Terry is cycling through the Southern town of Shelby Springs when a police officer (David Denham) attempts to pull him over, sloppily hits Terry with his squad car, detains him and seizes the stack of cash in his backpack “under suspicion” that it’s drug money.

Terry had been carrying the cash to bail out his cousin Mike (C.J. LeBlanc) from jail, hoping to spring him before a transfer to the state penitentiary, where he’d be in dire danger as a former witness in a murder trial. But Terry’s money disappears into a property locker, where it will remain until he can contest the seizure in court, months later. A spunky young legal aide, Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), also informs him that the police department makes a habit of these seizures to fund its budget (and some margarita machines), after a civil suit resulted in a perfunctory “cleanup” of their corrupt practices.

By refusing to accept that the police department has stolen his money (and, in doing so, endangered his family) Terry has kicked a hornet’s nest, riling up a swarm of good-ol’-boy cops (including an excellent Emory Cohen), who answer to Chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson). But what these cops don’t realize is that Terry is not someone to mess with, as they discover too late that he’s not just an ex-Marine. He’s a Marine martial arts instructor.

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A lot of talk of police procedure leads to the action of “Rebel Ridge,” though Saulnier seeds bursts of violence throughout as Terry seizes control. Long, gliding tracking shots with sophisticated camera and character blocking give way to hectic handheld movements as Terry scraps and tussles with his foes. Saulnier uses the edit to evoke Terry’s increasing vigilance, constantly keeping tabs on everyone in his vicinity as he realizes just how deep the corruption goes in this town.

It is this detailed discussion of mundane legal details — and how the police manipulate policy to their own benefit — that is the point of Saulnier’s film. Terry has found himself descending into a hellish odyssey of bureaucracy, paperwork and a “justice” system that relies far too heavily on the discretion of small-town cops and judges who have their own motivations and biases, and who all too easily make decisions that value budgets over human lives: Black lives, female lives, addict lives.

Within this complex system of shifting allegiances, one highly skilled man can root out the weaknesses and disrupt the food chain. But hanging over the narrative is a sense of futility, that this can and will happen again and again. Another lawsuit, another life lost, another workaround. But for a moment, one man on a bike with a few expertly wielded weapons can wreak holy havoc on corrupt cops, and damn does it feel good to watch.