REBEL RIDGE

Rebel Ridge starts brilliantly. Within minutes Terry (Aaron Pierre), heading into town with a bagful of cash, intent on bailing his cousin out of jail, is rammed of the road by local law enforcement, handcuffed, and robbed of his money.

It is an opening scene that does everything that an opening scene should do. It introduces the characters and the power dynamics that exist between them, sets the tone of what’s to come, and welcomes you into its world.

It wastes no time at all in telling you everything you need to know about how you’re going to be spending the next two hours. And this is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

It strength, because it allows its audience to fully relax into what it is. Because from here, it all starts to feel a bit Jack Reacher.

Small town with corrupt public officials. Military veteran riding into town and getting pulled into local politics. Teaming up with an attractive blonde to fight for justice. 

It’s all there.

If you’re familiar with Jack Reacher you can just immerse yourself in the world.

It’s weakness, because it offers very few surprises. The problem with knowing exactly what you’re getting is exactly that. You know what’s coming. So by the end it all just starts to wash over you. Happening around you without every requiring you to fully engage with it.

Rebel Ridge does also struggle in trying to maintain its momentum across throughout its 130 minute runtime. It starts and ends brilliantly, but definitely suffers from some second act lag.

Part of this comes from how understated it is at times. At times this really works in it’s favour, particularly towards the climax, where it could so easily descend into the kind of over-the-top fare we typically gets, it keeps its story telling - and its action - small and personal. 

It allows you to fully care about the characters, the world they live in, and understand the implications of their actions on the films wider community. 

But in its middle act it can become painfully slow at times. Whilst I applaud its desire to keep the action to a minimum, therefore increasing its impact when it does happen. But there needed to be something in the midst of the, relatively bog-standard, plotting to help these slower moments tie together. To keep an audiences attention on it.

As far as Netflix films goes though, this is one of the better ones. It’s not perfect, of course, but where it is good, it is very good. 

It is perhaps a little too long, but otherwise, one that is well worth your time while you wait for series 3 of Reacher.