REBEL RIDGE

Name: REBEL RIDGE
Item: REBEL RIDGE
Author: Review

"Ex-Marine Wages War on Corrupt Police Force"

Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

REBEL RIDGE on Netflix is about a former marine who sells everything he owns to bail his cousin out of jail. Terry must bail out his cousin before he’s transferred to state prison, where gang members he testified against would murder him. Before Terry can get to the courthouse, two corrupt white cops run him down. They steal his money. Terry tries to work with the police chief, but he thwarts Terry at every turn. When his cousin’s murdered, it becomes a race between the corrupt cops and Terry, who’s trying to get evidence on their corruption.

REBEL RIDGE is compelling and well-acted, but it’s too long. The movie does have strong moral messages promoting justice and doing the right thing. Also, the hero risks his life and safety for others. Finally, the politically correct theme about corrupt white Southern cops is tempered when one of the cops turns out to be doing good behind the scenes, without endangering his family. However, REBEL RIDGE has lots of strong, gratuitous foul language. The amount is excessive. The movie also has strong, intense action violence.

Content:

CONTENT: (BB, PP, CC, H, Ab, PC, LLL, VV, DD, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview with positive American values overall stresses doing the right thing, obtaining justice and the hero repeatedly shows self-control and pursues the most moral actions and risks his life and safety to save others, plus a large Cross with Jesus is the backdrop of one scene along with a Christian stained-glass window when a character takes part in a church activity for his son, but hero expresses doubt about the afterlife but not in a malicious way, and the story is a bit politically correct in a few places about the issue of police brutality and police corruption in a small Southern police force dominated by white cops, but the political correctness is mitigated by one of the white cops who turns out to be working against the corrupt ones in the background rather than in the open because he fears for his family’s safety, and a black cop sides with the corrupt ones in one crucial scene but later quits doing that when the corrupt ones clearly go much too far, and the state police eventually come in to handle the corruption when it’s revealed; Language: At least 80 obscenities (including at least 50 “f” words), and a few profanities (including GD and ”Oh my Lord”);
Violence:
Lots of strong and light violence and action violence such as two corrupt white cops form a small Southern town harass hero who is a black man and former Marine, the corrupt cops knock him off his bicycle and forcibly confiscate his money he was using to bail out his cousin who was picked up for marijuana possession (the hero is trying to avoid having his cousin placed in a prison environment where gang members may murder him because he left the gang when he was younger), hero gets into standoffs with police, stabbings, fistfights, martial arts, man uses non-lethal bean bags in shotgun with police during final standoff, a good character is wounded by a police bullet and starts to bleed in thigh (it looks like they hit an artery), corrupt police set fire to an underground records facility, martial arts fighting;
Sex:
No sex; Nudity: No nudity;
Alcohol Use:
No alcohol use;
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
A man chews tobacco, references are made to drugs, villain injects a former drug addict with heroine against the addict’s will, and a young man is arrested for marijuana possession before the movie begins; and,
Miscellaneous Immorality:
Police corruption but rebuked, and there’s a dysfunctional family.

More Detail:

REBEL RIDGE is about a former marine, Terry, who sells everything he owns to bail his cousin out of jail in a small Southern town for a simple charge of marijuana possession. A black man, Terry needs to get his cousin out of jail before he’s sent to a bigger prison, where his cousin’s life would be in danger from his former gang members.

However, before he can get to the courthouse, two corrupt local white cops run him down on his bike and steal the money. Somehow, Terry must get the money back or his cousin will end up dead.

Terry takes the matter to the town offices. He explains that he needs the money back. If his cousin isn’t bailed out before they transfer him to state prison, he’ll be murdered by other inmates he previously testified against. Chief Sandy Burnne isn’t really interested in Terry’s predicament. He harshly issues a threatening warning against Terry to leave town and forget the money. A young white administrative assistant, Summer, overhears Terry’s plea and tries to help him.

Terry tries to get money from his former business partner, a restaurant owner with whom Terry had invested money. The former partner agrees. However, when it comes time to send the money, Terry learns Chief Burnne has reported the restaurant owner to authorities on trumped-up charges, and they temporarily closed down the restaurant.

Terry forces the Chief to make a deal about the money they took. He and his officers can have most of the money if they just give Terry the bail money for his cousin. The Chief loosely agrees, but then betrays Terry by sending his cousin to a state prison early, before he can be bailed out and released. Naturally, the cousin is murdered.

The Chief shows remorse when Terry returns and offers Terry a bribe if he will let it go. Reluctantly, Terry agrees and leaves town.

However, the Chief and his men kidnap Summer, the white woman who helped Terry. They inject her with heroin. Summer desperately calls Terry for help. He comes running back to her and finds that Summer can’t go to a hospital, because they will report her to the authorities. That will prevent her from ever getting any custody rights to her daughter, whose custody went to Summer’s ex-husband.

Terry has to find a way to get Norcon to Summer. He also wants to help Summer to uncover the possible corruption among the police that’s in some questionable information Summer has found in some files.

REBEL RIDGE has an interesting storyline with strong acting. However, the plot wanders. This makes the movie seem even more excessively long. REBEL RIDGE also has some political correctness. For example, the movie relies on viewer anxiety about white Southern police brutality against black people to build momentum. REBEL RIDGE tempers this political commentary by having one of the white police officers turning out to be a good guy who fears for his family’s safety if he were to expose the local police corruption. Also, a black female cop goes along with the corruption in one scene. She later changes her mind when the corrupt cops go too far. Also, in one scene, the movie makes a case against the radical trend toward defunding the police.

In addition, REBEL RIDGE promotes the use of non-lethal tactical weapons, such as tasing and rubber bullets. This content seem a bit didactic to one of our reviewers, who thought it distracted from the story. It also comes across as corny and unrealistic, especially at the end during the final confrontation. With the number of corrupt officers trying to kill Terry at the end, it seems too incredible that Terry would not use lethal force.

Be that as it may, the hero in. REBEL RIDGE, Terry, maintains admirable control and restraint. He also maintains a strong sense of doing the right thing. Terry is a hero for justice and defends the weak.

That said, REBEL RIDGE has lots of excessive, gratuitous foul language. Also, the violence is strong and intense. So, extreme caution is advised for adult viewers.

Watch REBEL RIDGE →

Quality:

- Content: -3