The plot is a ‘chirmol’ and there are loose ends to deal with as the credits roll, but Rebel Ridge is gripping from start to finish.
Jeremy Saulnier’s last movie Hold the Dark (2018) featured an extravagantly violent, high body count police/suspect gun battle, and I am sure that for some, expectations had been set for some sort of reprise here, but instead the near final shoot out is almost comically chaotic and imprecise.
Indeed the material’s USP is the subtle frustration of viewer expectations (e.g. an ex-Marine Corps protagonist who apparently has a Wikipedia page detailing how good he is at Asian martial arts who doesn’t really do any of that stuff in the movie, which is named after a completely subsidiary location in the story etc), yet we never felt properly frustrated and a large part of this has to do with the commanding persona of Terry Richmond, played by Brixton-born Aaron Pierre— a late substitution for John Boyega — and now surely on the path to Hollywood mega-stardom.
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