My favorite Saulnier film since Blue Ruin, Rebel Ridge is a straightforward tale of corrupt cops getting in over their head when they give a badass retired marine a hard time.

There are some things worth pointing out that I think work really well in this movie's favor, such as Terry bucking the trend as a protagonist in such a movie by being a close quarters combat expert and never resorting to lethal violence, instead opting for many non-lethal techniques to deal with situations whenever it escalates to that point. This makes for some really interesting action scenes, in particular the climax which was one of the coolest and tensest scenes I've watched in quite some time and it was basically just shot in a parking lot with a smoke machine. Saulnier knows how to work around limitations and use what budget he has to create something believable, fresh, and highly engaging. There was never a point I was able to see through the filmmakerly facade and tell that he wanted to do something more but couldn't like I can with some other mid-budget straight-to-streaming films, he executed this one perfectly.

It isn't totally without faults. The middle of the movie really sags with exposition, a lot of "hunting for proof/info/McGuffin" type scenes, and elongated character motivation scenes that all kind of feel like padding. Obviously I say this without knowing what the raw footage looked like, but I think the edit could've been a little bit tighter, shaved it down maybe another 15 minutes, and it wouldn't have lost anything important.

Another fault: no Macon Blair! Well, not on-screen at least. He did executive produce, but I walk into a Saulnier film wanting to see my boy Macon on screen! He is the Kurt Russel to Saulnier's John Carpenter—like peanut butter and chocolate these two. I kid, I kid. I bring it up more to say: this movie definitely feels like another step away from Saulnier's grindhouse-y silly exploitation type roots. This is not a bad thing, in fact the things I like so much about Blue Ruin are its deeply thoughtful and empathetic characters and themes, not so much the practical gore effects, which are admittedly effective, just not what drew me in. Rebel Ridge has a little bit of fun here and there, but the story and message come first over any of that stuff, and it handles things extraordinarily well.