Ivan Radford | On 07, Sep 2024

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Emory Cohen, Steve Zissis, Zsané Jhé, James Cromwell
Certificate: 15

“You need to be very careful.” Those are the words of police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson) to Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre). Terry is a victim of police brutality and racial prejudice. He’s the cousin of a key witness who’s about to go to prison. And he’s also an ex-marine with martial arts expertise. So when the police use their privilege to take the money he’s using for bail money, he takes action. Very carefully.

Terry’s push back against the police’s financial foul play leads him to the local courthouse, where he crosses path with law clerk Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), who has her own backstory that connects her to the town’s justice system. What becomes clear is that, whether it’s the thuggish cop Lann (Emory Cohen), the quietly complicit officer Marston (David Denman), the straight-shooting junior officer Sims (Zsané Jhé) or the weary judge (James Cromwell), everyone in the town is entangled and compromised in some way.

And so the stage is set for a Western-style showdown befitting of the film’s generic title, as Terry threatens to expose corruption wherever he finds it. From racial prejudice and family tensions to bribery and state lawsuits, there’s a lot of corruption on offer, but the script smartly finds ways to flesh out every avenue through the knotty ensemble of public officials. As the scope expands, and the stakes rise, lesser movies would get bogged down or lost in the details, but Rebel Ridge revels in them: it’s a beautifully meaty tale, but there’s also no fat on it whatsoever, with every single element of the saga thought out, followed through and cleanly executed.

It’s no surprise, then, that Jeremy Saulnier is the one telling the story. The Blue Ruin and Green Room helmer is a master at suspense – not because he ratchets things up quickly, but precisely because he does the opposite. He slows down to soak up the atmosphere, giving us the time and space to anticipate what might happen – or, more often than not, what will definitely happen. And then, when the people on screen begin to realise too, the suspense doubles up to nerve-racking effect.

The only person whose pulse seems to stay level is Terry. Aaron Pierre delivers a starmaking role as the patient righter of wrongs – wrongs not just done against him, but against others around him. After impressing in The Underground Railroad, he sinks his teeth into the leading man with all the imposing presence and charisma of Jack Reacher. Armed with Pierre’s piercing stay, Terry always calmly observes before reacting, and always acts with purpose – right down to knowing exactly how far he can push something before he’s on the wrong side of the law. The notion of an enigmatic lone wolf with a military background is hardly original, but Pierre strips it of any cliche, rooting his formidable fighting in an emotional honesty that grabs at your heart strings – and a non-lethal approach that makes each bone-crunching blow land harder. You don’t know whether to hug him or take 10 steps back.

AnnaSophia Robb, too, invests Summer with a heartwrenching vulnerability and a self-awareness of her precarious position in life – and a stubborn streak that makes her stand out from the other courthouse employees. She’s an excellent foil to Don Johnson’s loathsome sheriff, who shares that same self-awareness but puts it to bad use. Crucially, he and the other police officers never descend into cartoonish villains – they are the human faces of countless microagressions and moral lapses, their own unethical behaviour reinforced by a system that, unlike Saulnier’s script, doesn’t regard each player on the board as an actual human.

As each piece in the puzzle slots together with a precise inevitability, Saulnier crafts a ticking time bomb that’s fused together with long tracking shots and subtle character beats. It’s a stirring, silently riveting thriller that is impeccably crafted at every level. You almost wish that Saulnier would make a sequel, so that we can see more of Pierre’s Terry in action, but that might only lessen the impact of this movie’s brooding, slow-burn magic. What a mature cinematic treat this is.

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