As a person of color and especially as a person of color who might be a woman and/or black there is an inherent suggestion in our society that the status quo is irrefutable, that what is is what has been, and our best bet is to learn how to work within from within that framework. Our movies and television which feature a large amount of black people and POC as cops, as military, as some form of state sanctioned adjudicator around justice reinforce that, but contrary to popular belief going along is not getting along, and in a society this lopsided, this bent towards violence as a feature of its success not a bug - it's vital to understand that violence IS getting along. It is the universally understood language. Destruction in America is construction, and Saulnier's movie doesn't take long to ride us right into the wave of just how. When Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) arrives into town he is on his bike immersed in the blaring symphony of rage of Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” he is literally knocked out of his peace by an oppressive authority figure who sees it as a threat. In essence he is antagonized for merely existing by the folks that are meant to be justice. There is no making peace with anyone who sees your very existence as adversarial. This is something Terry is meant to eventually come to, by way of channeling his Rage and his focus. Rage and focus are separate but equal in Richmond's mind, but in Saulnier's film they are bonded equals. Terry’s separation of the two, using one to subdue the other, is a form of survival, of going along to get along, and from the moment he is attacked, he begins moving in various modes of evading and subduing his rage to maintain focus. Watching this alternating, incompatible, but justifiable swap is consistently part of the excitement and frustration of Rebel Ridge. Terry's rage is what allows him to connect to his sense of justice, to his own personal desire for something more than survival, to thriving, meanwhile his focus allows him to survive attack, but when used to maintain restraint it only further disintegrates his relationship with peace. Early on in his arrest he asks if he lets the officer look into the package the officer found in his backpack, will that expedite this process, and the officer says “The more cooperative you are, the better”, Richmond agrees, and it in fact does not get better. They legally, but immorally (a distinction that makes itself known throughout this film) confiscate the money they found, falsely charge him with drug trafficking, and and send him on his way much worse off than he was when he started. In essence, for his compliance he was rewarded with theft, and the destruction of his recently revealed plan to help his cousin get out of jail. Later when in the station to lodge a logical complaint, Terry in favor of getting along commits maybe his most outrageous bit of compliance by agreeing to let Don Johnson’s dollar tree cartel keep 26,000 of his hard earned money, and only give him back the portion most important to his cousins release (10,000 dollars ) which is of course as we eventually find out, turned down. Not only does Don Johnson’s Chief Sandy Burnne end up turning that down, but uses the information Terry willingly gave up about the restaurant he co-started to shut the restaurant down, under the principle that Terry's offer was itself a case of entitlement. The presentation of the competing interest of Terry's innate and socialized instincts for survival -versus a system which was born and raised in violence that only understands violence as an answer is the great dilemma of this movie. Saulnier’s action piece which of course is not intentionally about this particular subject so incisively depicts this tension that it ends up doing it better than many films that intended to.
Action films almost innately come with the expectation of violence, and as such they make a near perfect house for this particular story. When one of Chief Burnne’s cops asks Terry if he'd like to be tased the expectation is violence. When Don Johnson continues to probe and prick at Terry with sly remarks and statements about his cousin that are meant to be inflammatory the expectation is violence. Many have compared Saulnier's film to 1982’s genre classic “First Blood”, this is a more than fair comparison. Many have also called this a revenge thriller, that is a much less fair comparison or rather a much less accurate comparison. “Rebel Ridge” is no more a revenge thriller than its predecessor was, unless you indirectly connect both to revenge against the state there's not much being avenged in either. It is in fact more accurate to call these survival films, as we are witnessing survival tactics, whether that be in the more literal sense of how to physically survive in environments and conditions normally unsuitable for life, or in the spiritual sense of trying to maintain peace or sanity in environments and conditions normally unsuitable to either. Where they are certainly similar is in their integral understanding of the relationship between restraint and violence, not just in the film's protagonists, but also between the film's protagonist and their antagonist, so that both characters practice restraint and violence when necessary as an instinct for survival even while their restraint only seems to stoke the anger of their antagonists. In the first act of Rambo, after the initial confrontation, Stallone reminds Brian Dennehy’s Sheriff Teasle that he could have killed his man rather than just injured him, and that he could have indeed killed Teasle himself, rather than de-escalate it only serves to wrangle Teasle further. I already spoke to how Terry’s offer to Burnne only incensed him further. In both films the police as a function of the state are inherently violent almost innately so. They need no offense to create offense, they are offended perpetually by the existence of these non-assimilated identities. Be it John Rambo or Terry Richmond, these men are strangers, vagrants, unknown unknowns, and as such, a perceivable threat to their operations. The beginning of their interactions are intentionally agitative versions of “Give me a reason” -knocking Terry off of his bike, stopping John for walking on the street. Where they differ is in that very same identity, and out of it extends all of the integral differences between these two films. To state the obvious Rambo is white, and Terry Richmond is black, and it the differences are apparent immediately. While Rambo is bewildered at this response (“Why are you pushing me?”) Terry knows exactly what's going on, he doesn't know why he's being charged with, but he understands exactly why they're acting towards him the way they are and because of his knowledge of this, because his existence demands this knowledge for his survival, Terry Richmond is also much slower to move to violence than John Rambo. Rambo is in the somewhat privileged position to immediately react in kind to his instigators, the entire experience is new to him. It took his participation in an extremely unpopular war and vagrancy for him to run into a common circumstance of the existence of a Terry Richmond. The level of devastation he is allowed to enact is also vastly different from Terry Richmond, in part due to the fact that he is a white male and in part due to the protection of an intercedent, a high ranking government official in Richard Crenna's Col Sam Trautman. Richardson’s only allies lie in community, his intercedents in this film are an Asian man and his presumed son who run a Chinese food shop. While they are definitely of help to Terry's cause, their positioning in a xenophobic and spiteful country where one is still seen as the enemy is of such a precarious nature that they themselves become victimized from a distance. Once Terry arrives in town his only ally is a courthouse clerk herself in the precarious position of being nestled in the middle of this ring of corruption as well as being a woman, and eventually she too is victimized. As such this film cannot seriously label itself a revenge thriller nor in particular adhere to many of the narrative tropes of the action film. An action film can have its protagonist die, survival is not the main point of an action film, neither is justice, although of course they may very well have both. A revenge thriller can have its protagonist die, survival is not the main point of a revenge thriller neither is true justice, because justice is not synonymous with revenge. A survival film is dependent upon well…survival.
