Rebel Ridge
An ex Marine on his way to bail out his cousin from jail finds himself pushed against the wall by a high handed and corrupt chief of police. He then has no option but to confront the cop and despite strong resistance he finds allies in surprising places.
rg9400 reviewed
November 1, 2024•
Rebel Ridge takes a fairly stereotypical story and makes it its own. At the beginning, you might feel like you've already seen this story played out a hundred times, a Rambo-esque start. However, the movie kind of swaps things in subtle ways that compound once it finishes. Instead of a trained good cop, it is now a random person just trying to get his cousin out of jail. Instead of a bloody rampage, the character at every turn tries to keep things civil, tries to prevent unnecessary death. The end result is a movie that feels like it has more to say about systemic injustice and a man trying to navigate it the best he can. I appreciated this aspect of it, but I also feel like the movie suffers from being overlong unnecessarily, with the middle being a bit slow. It also doesn't really reckon with the racial aspect outside of the beginning. It's sort of there in the subtext initially, but it quickly becomes about general corruption instead of that. Finally, I found the very ending a bit anticlimactic and strange. I think I understand what the director was going for, but it came across almost like it undercut some of the messaging as well as not really being developed enough over the course of the movie.
rg9400 reviewed
November 1, 2024•
Rebel Ridge takes a fairly stereotypical story and makes it its own. At the beginning, you might feel like you've already seen this story played out a hundred times, a Rambo-esque start. However, the movie kind of swaps things in subtle ways that compound once it finishes. Instead of a trained good cop, it is now a random person just trying to get his cousin out of jail. Instead of a bloody rampage, the character at every turn tries to keep things civil, tries to prevent unnecessary death. The end result is a movie that feels like it has more to say about systemic injustice and a man trying to navigate it the best he can. I appreciated this aspect of it, but I also feel like the movie suffers from being overlong unnecessarily, with the middle being a bit slow. It also doesn't really reckon with the racial aspect outside of the beginning. It's sort of there in the subtext initially, but it quickly becomes about general corruption instead of that. Finally, I found the very ending a bit anticlimactic and strange. I think I understand what the director was going for, but it came across almost like it undercut some of the messaging as well as not really being developed enough over the course of the movie.
