‘Rebel Ridge’ an Instant Slow-Burn Action Classic

Jeremy Saulnier, director of such films as Blue Ruin, Green Room, and Hold the Dark, is our current master of the slow-burn action movie. He resists going straight for the beatdowns and the shoot-outs, opting instead to let anticipation work its magic. His films feel spectacularly violent because we spend so much time imagining all the mayhem to come. In that sense, Rebel Ridge, now on Netflix, might be his tightest, most characteristic work to date. It’s all about a man trying to avoid violence — and the more he avoids it, the more our bloodlust grows.

Rebel Ridge has the classic setup of a western — a stranger rides into town and immediately finds himself entangled with corrupt authorities — though the setup has also worked for plenty of crime dramas ranging from First Blood to the Jack Reacher stories. This time, the rider is Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre), a former marine whom we first see speeding down a country road on a bicycle before the local cops knock him over with a car and detain him. The police seize a giant wad of cash from his backpack — money he’s rushing to bail out his cousin, who’s being held on a minor drug charge. The catch is that his cousin, who was once a cooperating witness in the murder trial of a gang leader, is being transferred in two days to state prison, where he’ll be a dead man walking. Terry can’t allow that to happen.

It’s all quite infuriating. Terry has done nothing wrong, but he’s manhandled and brought low, and his money is taken — and we’re told this is all legal. Clearly taking a cue from their cruelly laid-back chief (Don Johnson), the smug cops smirk with the full knowledge that Terry can’t really do anything about this, despite the fact that he’s a walking wall of a man with arms the size of torpedoes.

As an actor, Pierre’s greatest asset might be his eyes: Even as he tries every recourse seemingly available to him, we can sense Terry watching, calculating, planning. The unique spin of Rebel Ridge is that our hero’s special set of skills have mostly to do with disarming and disabling attackers. It would be a comical stretch to call him a man of peace, but he’s always looking to defuse the situation, which creates an enjoyably unbearable tension between what he’s being put through and what he’s willing to do about it. We know this guy is going to explode at some point, and that none of this is going to end well for anybody.

Most action flicks and thrillers are content to let their MacGuffins recede into the background once the plot is set in motion. But Rebel Ridge at times seems to have been made specifically to inform the American public about the injustices of civil asset forfeiture; Terry even gets an aspiring-lawyer sidekick, Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), who works for the county clerk and conveniently explains the situation whenever context is required. It’s (mostly) a savvy move: The constant reminders that the cops are allowed to do all this certainly add to the growing suspense. Summer also reveals, however, that there’s an even bigger conspiracy going on in this town — and that’s where the film gets a bit dicier, as the dialogue occasionally mires itself in legalese. Luckily, by that point, we’re so locked into the central conflict that it’s a minor nuisance.

Saulnier builds tension well, but he also elegantly choreographs the havoc when it does come. His steady camera moves and patient edits gain speed, just enough to give us a rush of adrenaline; he’s always careful to establish space, because once we know what’s going on and who’s where, the director can get really creative with what they’re doing to one another. And, again, anticipation leads to investment. Rebel Ridge is not even all that violent, but the limb-breaking and face-pummeling in this movie are some of the most satisfying in recent memory. The film manages to be both intelligent and visceral. If only all streaming action programmers were this smartly made.