'Rebel Ridge' Review

To say that writer/director Jeremy Saulnier had to traverse quite the bumpy road to bring Rebel Ridge, his first film in five years, over the finish line would be quite the understatement. John Boyega was initially slated to star in the leading role, with things progressing far enough for a material amount of the film to be shot in 2021 before he mysteriously backed out. Fresh off roles in Old, The Underground Railroad, and Brother, Aaron Pierre came in as the substitute (a welcome upgrade, which I’ll talk about later) and filming resumed almost a year later. A series of reshoots and pickups followed, with the budget ballooning from the originally reported $25 million to nearly $40 million.

Even with all those bad omens, the less-than-stellar release strategy, and not seeing a single frame of the finished product, I knew there was no way that Saulnier would deliver a worse Netflix film with “rebel” in the title than what Zack Snyder has done with his four (two original cuts and two director’s cuts) Rebel Moon features. I realize that that statement doesn’t indicate much praise, so let me be clear: Rebel Ridge will be one of the better/best films that very few people are going to talk about in 2024.

I also would like to mention that I intend no disrespect to Boyega and what he would have delivered in this role, as his previous performances outside the Star Wars universe (Breaking, The Woman King, They Cloned Tyrone) have their merits thanks to the physicality and emotional depth he brings. However, I also don’t think Boyega would have ever been able to match what Pierre is putting on the table here. Saulnier was spoiled for choice, and he landed on the better of two good options.

Pierre plays Terry Richmond, an ex-Marine who finds himself in a small Louisiana town posting bail for his cousin. He’s blasting his heavy metal playlist on his ten-speed bike when he’s driven off the road by a pair of local cops looking to get their daily power trip. Through a convenient loophole in the local justice system, any property seized by the cops under suspicion becomes police property, which means the $36,000 in cash in Terry’s backpack now stays within precinct walls. It doesn’t matter if Terry has receipts for how he acquired it, as the process for fighting the accusation will take months of paperwork that he doesn’t have.

Everyone within city hall is either oblivious, complicit, or scared by the corruption. The local sheriff (Don Johnson, continuing his streak of playing conservative scumbags) and his goons keep a tight leash on everything going on within the community, going so far as to threaten and blackmail. But Terry isn’t just any ex-Marine, he’s a martial arts and survival expert who isn’t afraid to chase down a prison bus on a highway with his bike. He doesn’t take a hotel room during his impromptu layover, instead opting to camp in the woods and catch fish with his bare hands.

Terry is destined to be the new star of every “alpha bro” account on TikTok, with his ease in kicking ass and taking names being just the sort of thing that attracts the crowd that identifies as lone wolves. But Saulnier doesn’t paint Terry in that light, which has been done so many times before, often poorly. He is one man fighting against a corrupt system, but violence isn’t going to change the entire culture suddenly. 

Saulnier’s signature visceral violence is still fully on display, only this time with a little more restraint compared to Green Room and Hold the Dark. Bones still snap with furiosity and broken noses gush with blood. But it’s a lot easier to justify murdering Nazis and rogue bounty hunters than boys in blue, no matter how much they’ve turned themselves into a profiteering militia. While Terry does the dirty work, up-and-coming lawyer Summer (AnnaSophia Robb) digs into the litany of paperwork that’s been created to cover up this mess. She and Terry find a connection through what this town has taken from them, and what they must do (and not do) to make things right again.

Rebel Ridge is as much a Rambo audition for Pierre and Saulnier as anything that’s come out over the past few years. But both of them have a little more on their mind than just musclebound carnage, leaving us with something both entertaining in its action and engaging with its ideas.