What’s It About
An ex-Marine grapples his way through a web of small-town corruption when an attempt to post bail for his cousin escalates into a violent standoff with the local police chief.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
The first time I watched the trailer, I thought, “This looks like a perfect, Ramboesque delivery.” Well, the first 10 or 15 minutes fulfilled that expectation. The movie initiates with great tension and manages to build the expectation of leading you to think that you’re in for an adrenalin-soaked, action-packed thrill-fest. Over time, though, the film sets you up over and over again, keeping you waiting for something deeper that just doesn’t come. The story opens as a white police officer, Evan Marston, pulls over and menacingly accosts Black Marine Terry Richmond. Marston doesn’t just pull over Terry; he does it with the specific goal of ramming his police cruiser into Terry’s bicycle—the meeting of two physically formidable, violence-leaning men. The tension is palpable between them. Both men are struggling with their almost uncontrollable anger—Marston is covered in unvoiced resentment, and Terry tries to contain himself, fully aware that at any moment, things may get out of hand. However, Terry persistently stands his ground to claim what is rightfully his, although he knows very well that Marston is attempting to bully him into something. His bearing is a good mixture of poise and attack, as liberating as it is suspenseful. Just when things couldn’t have gotten any worse, Officer Steve Lann, played by Emory Cohen, pulls up to add insult to injury with a textbook case of “driving while Black.” Terry was more or less bicycling his way through the Louisiana boondocks to stay out of jail, but instead, he gets entangled in a mess of police coercion. In Terry’s backpack, Marston and Lann find a wad of cash to bail his cousin out of jail. But this is a subplot that runs secondary to the slow-burn tension of the scene, stretched out in artful extended takes that build and build but never rush to a climax. Enter Officer Sims, played by Zsane Jhe, a Black female cop who becomes a temporary hostage. Her character is very interesting as she threads the peril of being in the line of institutional racism while at the same time dealing with Terry’s dangerous unpredictability. While fearing for her life, Sims also feels a tug of empathy for Terry, understanding his resistance against a corrupt system. This is one of the best scenes in the film, rivaling the great opening moments. “Rebel Ridge” does, at first, offer some of that with Terry as a smart, deeply capable hero who comes to learn about a wider criminal conspiracy a modern “First Blood” or a Jack Reacher story. Pierre is just superb in his role, furnishing Terry with humor, strength, and even a sense of ferocity without reducing him to a standard martyr. One moment that really stands out has Terry’s eyes shining with dark satisfaction as he finally manages to one-up the film’s main villain. He really relishes what he’s done in that moment, and the way Pierre delivers it takes the role away from being a one-note tough guy and gives it some depth. Don Johnson chews the scenery as the villain Burnne, playing to type without so much as an ounce of self-awareness. Every threat he makes is practically sung with over-the-top dialogue, like when he tells Terry, “If you come back to this township, it’ll end differently.” Johnson’s performance is that of a classic villain, right down to every clichéd threat made. Somehow, it works within the film’s heightened reality. But, as the movie progresses, it wears off its first impression. The introduction of the character by AnnaSophia Robb is a bit forced. Even though she is an office worker at the town hall, her character is shallow; it gives her nothing to chew on. Her sudden decision to help Terry unravel a conspiracy is far-fetched, especially after it has been established that she is only compassionate because she has had personal problems before. Then, the realization sinks, her character was bound to be a victim. The foreshadowing is so thick that when she says to Terry, “I have a feeling tonight will take a dark turn,” you can practically write his quip for him: “Isn’t that what nights do?” What a comfort it is to see veterans like James Cromwell showing up in underwritten roles as a judge, mostly managing to sidestep most of the klutzy lines that hobble other characters. He’s not in the movie much, but he’s very good and adds just a touch of gravitas to the second half, which really flies off the rails. In the end, “Rebel Ridge” is more a squandering of opportunity than anything else. Promising at the start, generic and overplotted past the midway point, increasingly Terry’s revenge-driven narrative in the second half feels like it’s an afterthought and not one that really needed resolution. A last-minute twist intended to redeem one of its central characters actually has the opposite effect; it winds up undermining some of the larger messages about institutional injustice that gave the thing a lot of its bite in the first place. Rebel Ridge, then, is quite competently watchable, but never quite pays off the kinds of tension and stakes it puts into place so impressively at the outset. It’s amusing for a little bit, but you wish it had done more with its promising premise.
OUR RATING – A SEDATED REBELLION 4