Netflix film “Rebel Ridge”, which was released on last Friday, is a rare thriller film which actually captivated me from the beginning to the end. While it seems a rather typical genre piece at first, the movie slowly but masterfully builds up tension and interest along the narrative while showing more style and personality to be cherished, and I admire it more now as reflecting more on how patient and dexterous it is in the handling of mood, story, and character.

The movie does not waste time at all in its economic setup stage. When we are introduced to an African American guy named Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre), he is riding a bike to a small rural town in Alabama where his cousin is being held by the local police for a little legal trouble. For getting his cousin released and then buying a boat for their little business, Richmond prepared a considerable amount of cash, but, alas, he happens to be stopped by two local police officers when he is about to enter the town, just because, well, he looks like an easy target for them.

Anyway, Richmond is willing to cooperate with these two police officers without causing any trouble as he must come to the courthouse in the town and then pay the bail for his cousin within a few hours. However, once they find the cash belonging to him, the police officers willfully confiscate it before eventually releasing him, and, to his exasperation, he soon comes to learn that he is already quite disadvantaged in one way or another. A young sympathetic woman who works as a courthouse clerk war tells him that what those police officers did to him is actually not against the law at all, and it seems there is really nothing he can do about this utterly unjust incident.

However, it soon turns out that Richmond is not someone who will not easily step back at all. First, he embarks on finding reasonable alternatives, and that is how he comes to face the sheriff of the town, who turns out to be quite corrupted as expected but may be able to reason with him to some degree. Meanwhile, he also seeks a bit more help from that courthouse clerk, who comes to find something fishy about the local legal system as trying to help him more. 

Now I should be more careful about describing the film. No, there is not any big twist to come along the story, but it is really absorbing to watch how the screenplay by director/writer/editor Jeremy Saulnier skillfully dials the level of tension up and down along the story, which often evokes the qualities of western films here and there throughout the film. Because his main opponent is fairly reasonable on the whole, Richmond is willing to step back a bit for his dear cousin, but a number of unexpected things occur along the story, and this only come to escalate the tension between Richmond and his main opponent, who will surely clash with each other more and more till the inevitable finale. 

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Richmond is actually a man with a particular set of skills like John Rambo of “First Blood” (1982) or the titular character of John Wick movies, but the movie does not hurry itself at all when he finally shows his opponents that they should not have messed with him from the beginning. There is an amusing moment where his opponents belatedly come to learn more about his background, and the movie also has a little wry fun with several certain acronyms uttered by him.

As Richmond becomes more determined to take care of the trouble for himself, the movie accordingly provides a number of quiet but suspenseful scenes to be appreciated for how Saulnier and his crew members including cinematographer David Gallego execute them with considerable efficiency. While Gellego’s cinematography fills the typical Southern background with subtle tension, Saulnier’s editing is taut and succinct without drawing too much attention, and he also did a commendable job in case of a few vehicle action sequences in the film, all of which are dramatically impactful in one way or another without being excessive at all.

Most of all, the movie is firmly anchored by the strong performance from Aaron Pierre, a promising actor who drew our attention for the first time via his memorable supporting turn in Barry Jenkins’ Amazon Prime miniseries “The Underground Railroad” and was also terrific in Canadian film “Brother” (2022). Although he was a last-minute replacement after John Boyega suddenly left in the middle of the production due to some allegedly personal issues, Pierre did a flawless job of embodying his character’s quiet will and determination, and he is also convincing in several physical action scenes in the film where he has to throw himself into some demanding physical stunts.          

Around Pierre, Saulnier assembles several good performers who effortlessly fill their respective spots as required. While Don Johnson has a lot of naughty fun with his arrogant villain character, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Emory Cohen, and Steve Zissis, and Zsané Jhé are also well-cast in their supporting parts, and James Cromwell is dependable as usual during a brief but crucial scene of his later in the film.

In conclusion, “Rebel Ridge” is one of the more impressive movies from Netflix during this year, and it is certainly another impressive work from Saulnier, who previously impressed me a lot with his second feature film “Blue Ruin” (2013). Although he seemed to go down a bit in his previous Netflix film “Hold the Dark” (2018), Saulnier is back in element here in this movie, and I sincerely hope that he will keep impressing me and other audiences more like this.