This story contains spoilers for Rebel Ridge on Netflix.
Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier is known for the impressive physical violence of his films, with his last two offerings being the brutal wilderness horror Hold the Dark and the brilliant and savage Green Room before it. Rebel Ridge is an action flick, but Saulnier takes a different, more subtle approach here as compared to those films, focusing closely on the oppressive systemic issues of a country that continues to contend with its long history of racism.
Saulnier trades in his typical penchant for brutality in favor of both making those who face the deep-rooted racism of the American police system feel seen, while also trying to reach those who may not yet understand the deep-seated issues that exist within police forces across the country. Green Room leans into the catharsis of watching neo-Nazis and white supremacists get what’s coming to them, while Rebel Ridge makes an effort to both empathize with those impacted by and educate those still perpetuating the system.
That’s not to say, of course, that Rebel Ridge is without its “bad things happening to bad people.” Instead, those bad things come despite every possible effort on behalf of the protagonist who is much more focused on de-escalation. Let’s dig in.
Rebel Ridge Ending Explained
While not immediately pertinent to the idea of an ending explained, it has to be said that Rebel Ridge lead Aaron Pierre is an absolute star. (If you haven’t seen him in Barry Jenkins’ impeccable limited series The Underground Railroad, remedy that immediately. It’s on Prime Video.)
It’s on the back of Pierre’s performance that the film succeeds and the ending hits as hard as it does. But, before we get to the ending, a tiny bit of synopsis is necessary here. Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a former Marine trying to post his cousin Mike’s bail before he is transferred to prison on a technicality after a misdemeanor marijuana possession. Mike (C.J. LeBlanc) was previously an informant on a major case, meaning that the transfer would result in his death once he’s imprisoned with those who he informed on. Richmond raises the money for bail legally (and with a paper trail) after selling his car and cashing out his stake in a restaurant, but local police run him off the road because he’s Black, clipping his bicycle and injuring him. Assuming the money is stolen, and despite the aforementioned paper trail, the police steal the cash in a (somehow perfectly legal) civil forfeiture.
Several things unfold as Terry attempts to get the life-saving money back, with Rebel Ridge illustrating the passivity of folks claiming to be good people while upholding the system that constantly beats their neighbors down both literally and figuratively. More on that later but, for now, suffice to say that Terry’s efforts are too late. After Sheriff Burnne (Don Johnson) pushes up the time table for Mike’s transfer, he is immediately fatally stabbed upon arriving in prison.
Bear in mind that Mike’s death hits at the film’s halfway point — it’s a long one — and that the intention of the film shifts from saving an individual to bringing the corruption of the police to light.
Throughout all of this, Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb) is essentially Terry’s only friend. And there are times in that first half where “friend” may be a bit of a stretch. Though a decent person who wants to fight for what’s right, Summer has a daughter that she lost after drug addiction and a felony theft conviction.
It’s Summer who brings the overarching corruption of the police force to a grieving Terry’s attention. While she’s afraid to lose her job and risk her ability to gain visitation rights with her daughter one day, she can’t walk away from the overt wrongdoing as the sheriff funnels the money from cash seizures and arsenal rentals back into his station and, as he insists, the community at large. Terry refuses to get involved at first, as he’s dealing with the loss of Mike and has already had enough dust-ups with the police. But, when the cops break into Summer’s home and dose her in her sleep (it’s unclear if it’s heroin, cocaine or meth, but it’s not ultimately pertinent), Terry’s back on board and it’s the beginning of the end with their final skirmish with the cops.
A common thread in Rebel Ridge is the well-meaning folk who simply can’t be bothered to get involved. We see it start with county clerk Elliot (Steve Zissis) who makes assumptions about Mike early on and has to be begged to finally give Summer and Terry a crumb of information as they try to get to the bottom of Mike’s conviction and the others like it. Later, this theme comes into play with the “good” judge (James Cromwell), who, in order to calm his guilt, does his best to make sure the misdemeanor “offenders” are eventually set free at the end of a 90-day period. But he’s known what Sheriff Burnne has been up to since it all started. The judge tries to take his own life via overdose before all’s said and done, but Summer and Terry are able to call an ambulance once they realize what he’s done (risking getting caught by the cops as they gather evidence against them in the process).
The most important conflicted and, up until the very end, morally gray character is Zsane Jhe’s Officer Jessica Sims. While she’s a friend of Summer, she has no interest in getting wrapped up in one man’s quest to dismantle the system she’s found a way to survive in, even as a Black woman. We see glimmers of hope for her throughout the film, knowing that she’s Summer’s contact within the force and seeing her stand up for Terry when a bunch of enthusiastic onlookers suggest they “string him up” after his first tussle at the precinct. But she finally sees the light when Sheriff Burnne shoots fellow cop Evan Marston (David Denman) for standing against him. Marson had realized that Officer Lann (Emory Cohen) gave Summer an overdose in order to force Terry to give up the SIM cards that would uproot the sheriff’s entire operation.
Later, Officer Sims is Burnne’s undoing. Once she realizes that Burnne’s intentions were to never save a bankrupt community or to protect and serve in any capacity, we see the story come full circle as she runs the sheriff off the road with her cruiser, allowing Terry, Marston, and Summer to get to the hospital safely. Video footage implicates Burnne in the shooting and will lead to a full investigation of the station.
Sims and Marston aren’t there to add to the “not all cops” discourse. Both of them were perfectly happy to let Terry’s plight play out if it wasn’t for what happened to Summer. Both of them are complicit in Mike’s death. The cleverness of Saulnier’s ending goes deeper than playing both sides.
Saulnier cleverly illustrates just how deep the rot of racism permeates this country with the simplest of scenes.
Tackling racism requires more than a conscious decision to simply “not be racist” but to be antiracist which, in the simplest possible terms, means to stand up against racism despite it not necessarily coming from you, specifically. This means that the decisions of Sims and Marston to finally do the right thing and, to a lesser extent, Elliot (and a much, much lesser extent the judge) doing the same plays a critical role in the film’s final message which is, in no uncertain terms, a reminder of the adage that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Not for nothing, but there’s a hearty dose of “it’s never too late to do the right thing” in there, too.
But wait, there’s more! Beyond shining a light on the community it takes to tackle systemic problems, Saulnier cleverly illustrates just how deep the rot of racism permeates this country with the simplest of scenes.
When Terry is trying to save Summer from the cops, Officer Lann tells him to meet them at Rebel Ridge for the exchange. Star Wars, Firefly, and plenty of pop culture taught us to love rebellions — and they were right to — but, in this case, the “rebel” in Rebel Ridge is very obviously denoting the rebel flag or, more popularly called now, the Confederate flag, to signal that the ridge played an important role in the Civil War. Ultimately, though, the ridge means nothing. They don’t meet — beyond Terry stopping a lone scraggler cop for information on Summer — and there’s no grand altercation or showdown for Summer or the evidence. It all happens elsewhere, in the town at large. Rebel Ridge is made out to be an important place both via the title and via the intent of a showdown, but by having none of the overt racism or police brutality actually happen there, Saulnier uses it as a metaphor to illustrate that racism isn’t tied to the confederacy, hate symbols, or specific locales. It is everywhere.
Narratively speaking, Rebel Ridge has a cut and dry ending: Black man ditches his lone wolf mentality and eventually knocks down the first domino in taking down a racist and corrupt police precinct. But, looking deeper, Saulnier’s story is so, so much more than that. Even if you read all of this prior to watching the film, I cannot recommend enough that you seek it out. It’s streaming on Netflix now.
