Rebel Ridge Parent Guide

Terry (Aaron Pierre) is on his way to post bail for his cousin when his bike is knocked off the road by local police officers, who proceed to confiscate the bail cash. Desperate to protect his vulnerable cousin, Terry tries to go through the legal routes to get his money back, but when he’s knocked back at every turn, he soon realizes that there’s something sinister going on in the Shelby Springs justice system. With only a trainee lawyer (AnnaSophia Robb) on his side, Terry uncovers an elaborate conspiracy involving corrupt cops, which puts both their lives in danger.

Rebel Ridge is an interesting film - a mash up of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight episode about civil forfeiture in the United States and Rambo: First Blood. The protagonist is a lot more stable and much less inclined to murder than Stallone’s traumatized special forces operative, but the down-on-his-luck vet blowing into a corrupt small town and getting pulled into an altercation with the cops is a familiar story. (Trigger Warning springs immediately to mind.) The investigation into the ongoing property seizure by the police gets more screentime than the vigilante action though, so don’t go in expecting to see Terry tearing through main street with a machine gun under his arm.

After I realized this story was going to be a more investigative, slow burn, I quite enjoyed the film, but it has its hitches. The biggest one is the post-production color manipulation, which has artificially darkened everything so badly that I had to run a few other movies just to make sure my TV was working correctly. It looks like old-fashioned day-for-night shooting in some places, and it’s a bizarre choice. I can’t help but wondering if that’s an honest to goodness error on the production end, since it doesn’t seem to serve any artistic purpose and makes the movie look like an amateur production. That said, the film’s piercing score effectively elevates the tension minute by minute, until it explodes. Great choice for a thriller.

Given it’s Restricted rating, it’s no surprise that Rebel Ridge is a tough sell for family audiences, clocking in with 50 f-bombs and a whole bunch of violence. It’s remarkable that our hero really goes out of his way not to kill anybody, but just like most murder-opposed vigilantes (cough Batman cough), he has no problem breaking limbs and distributing concussions amongst the local police force like they’re birthday piñatas. The screenplay also avoids sexual content, but compensates by having a character repeatedly dosed with opiates. I think the movie runs a little bit long, but it’s a compelling investigative thriller with plenty of danger layered over the mystery, and definitely one of the more interesting things to come out of Netflix lately.