When John Rambo is stopped on the side of the road by Police Chief Will Teasle, John knows full well what hostile territory he’s in. All he wants is peace and quiet, and the freedom to go wherever he wants, however he wants. But Teasle applies a slightly different law here: “we don’t want guys like you in this town”.

This is the ground Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) finds himself on when he’s stopped by the police, searched, stripped of his $36,000 and released with few scratches. A raging helplessness in the face of a deliberately complicated judicial system, which you can sense from the sentences spoken by the officer that it becomes more complicated as the conversation progresses.

There’s a first phase in Rebel Ridge, that of negotiation, of Terry’s controlled Olympic calm in the face of the system. Despite the help of Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), the situation seems to bog down in favor of the police, who are happy to keep the money. Still, you can feel Terry’s impatience boiling over, through his massive physique and sharp, piercing eyes that are impossible to forget. Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room, Hold the Dark) conveys Terry’s apparent calm with great ease, with his upright posture and controlled gestures accompanied by a careful, deliberately slow frame, which he contrasts with a few quick cuts to his character’s fast-moving actions, underlining his increasingly rumbling temperament.

The influence and inspiration of the character and the narrative of Rambo: First Blood is apparent throughout the film. With his different appearance from the rest and his makeshift camp in the forest, however, one difference reigns: Terry is not the killing machine who fought in Vietnam. In fact, he’s never been deployed. On the other hand, he knows how to get out of every situation in the least lethal way possible. The actor describes to NPR the relationship between his character and his physicality:

« it was highlighted to me that some individuals may not imagine that I have the capacity to portray convincingly a character with emotional intelligence on screen because of my physicality, because of my frame. And Jeremy in this movie completely turns that idea on its head ».

Perhaps that’s what gives Rebel Ridge so much credit: it manages to tell a story that’s narratively relevant, punctuated by action sequences, but never a single death. It’s also what makes Terry all the more likeable in the face of police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson), ready to shoot his officers to get out of his corrupt situation. Although Rambo: First Blood was a great speech on the difficulties of reintegrating Vietnam veterans, seeing the soldier seriously wounding police officers in the forest wasn’t the best defense for the character’s cause.

Because when Terry and Summer decide to put an end to the corruption of the town of Shelby Springs and the blackmail carried out by the cops, it’s done by handcuffing them and stealing confidential information. Rebel Ridge isn’t here to spin with the camera during its fights. Jeremy Saulnier doesn’t pull a John Wick; on the contrary, he manages to find a directing style perfectly suited to his character, his temperament, his approach to the situation. And that’s what makes Terry so human in the midst of all this corruption.

With this film, the actor finds a real moment of light, enabling him to take the big step from series (The Underground Railroad, Barry Jenkins) to the big screen. A much-needed step before the big leap this winter with Mufasa: The Lion King, in which the actor lends his voice to the eponymous character. Rebel Ridge doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does bring a bit of freshness to the action cinema landscape, not only with a more than competent script, cast and direction, but also with an actor with the body of a brute but the face of an angel.