JakubM’s review published on Letterboxd:
Rebel Ridge's resolution reeks far too much of bad apples to justify the ACAB plaudits I've been seeing around these parts, but ignoring how safely it's situating the wider policing context the film's core frustrations are eminently justified. At this point it's no secret that smaller communities are especially conducive to corruption, and despite its shortcomings Jeremy Saulnier's latest plays like a welcome challenge to all the anti-city discourse I see taking root across the web. On an emotional level it's also calibrated exactly right: I'm powerless before Terry Richmond's defiant race with the prison bus, the music swelling as his bicycle not only reaches but overtakes the vehicle transporting his cousin towards almost certain death. Likewise, the slime-ball power trips and flagrant extortion schemes carried out by its small-town fascists set up the ideal target for Terry's brand of non-lethal vengeance. And so again, shielding my eyes from the film's weird insistence on the unique status of this particular sheriff's abuses and sundry malfeasance, I admire what Saulnier's up to here. God knows I can abide absurd ultra-violence in cinema, but there's something to be said about reckoning with the way these narratives conflate justice and accountability with eye-for-an-eye visions of retribution. That said, I can't say I don't miss the go-for-broke will to survive animating Green Room or the unembarrassed existential questioning at the heart of Hold the Dark. Rebel Ridge is mostly concerned with surface, the implications of its commitment to non-lethal violence often getting lost inside the gimmick. In any case, Aaron Pierre's performance is magnetic, dare I say immediately iconic?
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