DallasFrance’s review published on Letterboxd:
Jeremy Saulnier is the contemporary filmmaker that comes closest to making grimy 70s crime films like Rolling Thunder and The Friends of Eddie Coyle. His films acknowledge that violence doesn’t look cool. Fights crack bones and twist limbs in directions they’re not supposed to go, and guns create geysers of blood and turn faces into unrecognizable messes. Saulnier’s films are less about delving into the moral rot behind racist and power-hungry systems; he makes us live with them for entire films, so we see characters whose entire worldview and lifestyle are shaped by fear, hatred, and tribalism.
John Boyega left Rebel Ridge a few weeks into shooting, but I can’t possibly imagine anyone doing a better job with the lead role than Aaron Pierre. In the beginning, his character Terry is bringing money to court to bail out his cousin. Police officers clip the back of his bike and seize the money, and within ten minutes we see how easy it is for these cops to act with impunity, and how impossible it is for Terry to avoid being violated and brutalized.
Pierre’s great performance shows how Terry is somehow able to contain his justifiable rage enough to survive and oftentimes outwit the police. Chief Sandy Burnne is played by Don Johnson, who’s getting pretty good at playing evil old white guys (Django Unchained, etc.) The only person in town willing to help Terry is court clerk Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), and we soon find out there’s a price to pay for that.
Summer McBride might sound like a trope-y character, but Saulnier doesn’t slow down enough to let sentimentality even peek its head around the corner. Between Blue Ruin, Green Room, and now Rebel Ridge, Saulnier has become one of the best genre filmmakers around.
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