Rebel Ridge is one of the best films of the year

Rebel Ridge, directed by the great Jeremy Saulnier, is a distant relative to Rambo – before the series became a jingoist wet dream and self-parody.

It's the story of an American soldier turned outsider by a system built for only a select few. Aaron Pierre plays the marine veteran, Terry, who is on his way to bail his brother out of jail. On the way, he's assaulted by corrupt cops in a podunk town somewhere in Louisiana. It's the kind of harassment made legal by a broken system. To anyone outside of America, it comes off as insanity, yet it's all too real.

The cops take Terry's money and tell him to leave town. But Terry isn't swayed. He made a promise to his brother. As he pursues the limited legal avenues that are left, Terry comes face to face with the racist Chief Sandy (Don Johnson), who rules his nowhere town with an iron fist. Things escalate and then escalate further until the two are at open war.

The resulting film is an intimate neo-noir Western that challenges the audience while still delivering the goods on traditional elements. That's not an easy feat. One wrong move and Rebel Ridge could turn into a clumsy pantomime or a deeply unpleasant piece of copaganda.

Instead, Saulnier never lets us forget how real this nightmarish scenario can be. Watch how Pierre swallows his rightful anger as the cops harass him. He knows, as we do, that any objections are met with force. Law is secondary to hatred. Much of the anticipation and tension comes from knowing who Terry is, and how seeing how far he can be pushed before he snaps.

It's a delicate balance to work with since it requires a certain acceptance of fantasy. Those ordinarily assaulted by racist authorities rarely can fight back. Here, we want Terry to do exactly that, yet Saulnier keeps the catharsis at bay for most of the film. In a lesser movie, Terry would shoot first and not even bother with the questions. In Rebel Ridge, he is a mythic Clint Eastwood-style hero who cannot fight back because the system around him is built for subjugation.

This results in a fascinating and complex study of violence, the social contract, and how easily others will look away from corruption because action against it would topple their frail comfort. The fact that it's also extremely entertaining is a stunning feat of filmmaking magic.

Pierre is remarkable in the lead. He's not just absurdly handsome, but charismatic and dangerous, too. His subtle performance hints at a raging storm within that he's learned to control. Watch his body language and deliberate tonal shifts as he deals with Chief Sandy. It's a fantastic performance from a talented actor that will sadly go overlooked as Rebel Ridge is dumped into streaming this autumn.

As the villain, Don Johnson continues to impress and elevate his craft. He's always been a charismatic presence, but it's only in the last decade that he's begun to mine that easygoing charm with something more sinister. Chief Sandy is the kind of archetype we'd see as a hero just a few decades earlier. Today, with the world finally catching up to our broken society, we can see him for what he really is.

Rebel Ridge is deliberately paced and just a tad slow in its second half. It toys with the audience in a way that's only slightly too knowing, yet it doesn't harm the big picture. Instead, in retrospect, the delayed gratification makes the explosive finale that much more impressive. By toning down reductive violence, Saulnier focuses on the devastating impact of oppression on a larger scale. We are left with more questions than answers, which hopefully lead to complex discussions once the film ends.

This is a superlative thriller. One that proves Saulnier is one of our finest voices of iconoclastic cinema. He plays in familiar genre playgrounds, yet always comes out with something new and interesting to say. Aaron Pierre is a star in the making, and his leading performance will find him many fans throughout the years.

I just wish we could have seen this in the cinema.