Rebel Ridge: The birth of "elevated thriller"?

Rebel Ridge: An uncommon term mostly used to describe

punk and metal music fans, rebels by nature.

Many things, especially good things, can happen when Netflix decides to give its directors creative freedom. There weren't a lot of cases where the company executives had no choice but to grant power to authors that, at the very least, command respect just with their name, like Scorsese, Fincher, Sorrentino, Cuarón, Baumbach, Flanagan; and, six years ago, Jeremy Saulnier appeared with his thriller Hold the Dark. This film tells a kind of ambiguous revenge and mystery story lacking coherence. After its premiere, I completely forgot his name since, even though this director who always manages to entertain surprised me with Blue Ruin and Green Room, these movies didn't compensate for the fact that he made me waste two hours with an empty thriller.

A few days ago, I read—somewhere I don't remember—that the best action film which premiered this year on the platform was available, so I decided to give it a try. It didn't seem like a coincidence when I read that this film titled Rebel Ridge was Saulnier's latest work. Even though Saulnier was never considered an action genius like the current Chad Stahelski or David Leitch, just to name a few popular ones, he does know how to make an impact in action thanks to the calculated brutality found in practically all of his movies. The plot didn't seem like my cup of tea, but I also didn't expect much due to it.

The film's beginning isn't grandiloquent but metaphorically and literally overwhelming: a police patrol runs into a cyclist biking in the middle of the road on his way to paying his cousin's bail, who was arrested for drug possession. The victim, a bulky man named Terry (Aaron Pierre playing a tailor-made role for him), acts calm and very respectful. He even goes as far as to play a back-and-forth game between both officers to test their patience. One of the police officers—a stereotypically arrogant man who surely had an extremely conservative education—groundlessly believes that Terry's bail money is dirty money. These assumptions—surely due to his skin color—are sadly deeply-rooted in a huge part of the current population. Nonetheless, Terry remains calm and determined to complete his mission: to give it all to free his cousin.

Saulnier's ways of managing tension are admirable. From the beginning, nothing too spectacular which makes one say "yes, this is a masterpiece" happens, but the director manages to create an environment where his characters' moralities are clearly defined by their actions. This is how the cinéma d'auteur is created instead of the "generic" films this platform got us used to by creating mediocre audiovisual products, almost put together with AI and edited by amateurs who don't seem to have a single pinch of love for films. On the contrary, this film's author permeates his work with an unmistakable sense of darkness and a brilliant atmosphere building. In addition, he's also very capable of creating tension from the very beginning.

Personally, I love movies focused on showing law's dark side and corruption in small towns, topics which remind me of where I live. Mostly, I love movies which present a sort of one-army-man—you know, those modern Rambos who face a whole system on their own—that seem to have everything figured out. This action thriller has many features of the eighties big action thrillers like those starred by Stallone or Chuck Norris, but Saulnier further elevates tension, escalating from a simple misunderstanding between an officer and a simple citizen to a war between good and evil. Elevated thriller? I refuse to categorize it in this genre, but there's a slight feeling of a more "cinematographic" approach in Rebel Ridge.

The director presents a classic mise en scène geographically located around the surrounding area of a small Louisiana city, delimiting the rules the police impose in this area in contrast with what the main character tries to overthrow. Everything is about showing who is more intelligent. The main problem isn't only triggered by the initial lunge, but also by this huge detail: the police "confiscate" Terry's $36.000 he had in his backpack for his cousin's bail. What other choice does he have if the authorities which should guard the citizens blatantly rob him money intended for a good cause? Clearly, this is what makes the film interesting and what transforms it from a "you're in our town, go away" to a “you're trapped here with me.”

The message is overwhelming, but Netflix doesn't seem to learn. Its platform reputation remains sturdy solely for its audience's different ages, countries and other factors which I can't determine. Nonetheless, these factors lead me to believe that Netflix—or, more likely its CEOs—only wants to include every genre in its catalog and get those sweet revenues, like any other monstrous company.

What would happen if it would only focus on producing spectacular films instead of persistent pile after pile of garbage with the goal of, after many attempts, attaining a film like this one?

The movie is available now on Netflix and is one of the

greatest action/suspense movies of the year so far.

BY JERÓNIMO CASCO

Posted on SEPTEMBER 11, 2024, 17:57 PM | UTC-GMT -3

You can also find me on Instagram as 👉 JerodeSeptimoArte

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