Reactions visible to anyoneReactions visible to owner’s Close FriendsReactions only visible to youDraft entryVisible to anyone (with link)Visible to the member’s friends (with link)Only visible to you
Director Jeremy Saulnier’s ability to create cerebral, Hitchockian tension is on full display in this riveting action thriller, but that functions as just a backdrop for his unexpectedly contrarian artistic statement about the nature of action thrillers. It’s true that “Rebel Ridge” has the broad strokes of many precursors in the revenge genre, e.g., “First Blood,” “Jack Reacher,” etc. But Saulnier is uncommonly judicious in his use of action, even beyond the stated non-lethal martial arts expertise of lead Aaron Pierre’s Terry Richmond. Saulnier only gives us exactly as much violence as is necessary to advance his narrative; no more and no less. In fact he regularly pulls back from the point of indulgence, denying the audience the satisfaction of meting out suffering and feasting on vengeance, base pleasures we’ve come to expect from lesser entertainments. It’s a surprising, distinctive kind of intentionality that maps perfectly to the mindset of a lead character who sees the world in terms of discrete, achievable pockets of victory within a uniformly f’d up social system. This approach is both pragmatic about the reality of the world at large, but also illuminating about specific injustices: Saulnier’s script makes the abstract thievery of civil forfeiture incredibly vivid. Infuriatingly vivid. Pierre turns in a superstar-level performance; he inhabits Terry Richmond with such totality it shows up in every gesture. But Don Johnson also deserves enormous credit here as the foil; this is another in his series of superb, late career renderings of the nature of racist white men.
Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account—for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages (example), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!
