If you're familiar with writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, a filmmaker from the DMV area, this film will also feel familiar. His breakout work was his sophomore feature, Blue Ruin (2014), which is about a man under siege by a group of people who want to kill that man with the death of a family member fueling a revenge track. Saulnier followed up that film with Green Room (2016), another thriller about people under siege. Often or mostly, it's one man against the world or it's a one-man army. Green Room had it come down to one man and one woman against the world. This film picks up on that thematic premise, although when this film begins, it feels like a continuation of what he was doing in Blue Ruin.
However, because of the military component here, most people of a certain age might compare this film to First Blood (1982), the beginning of Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" franchise. That 1982 hit was about a Vietnam War veteran who goes up against a corrupt sheriff's office in the northwest United States. That film was in a lot of ways a critique of the Vietnam war and the treatment of veterans at that time. Given the racial component, most people of a certain age might compare this film to In the Heat of the Night (1967), the Oscar-winning classic, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger. That 1967 critically-acclaimed film was about a Black man with a lot of money who gets stopped by police and pulled into a racial conflict with the police chief of a small town in the South. Poitier and Steiger's characters clash over a murder. The circumstances are different, but there's some connection there, if only superficial.
Aaron Pierre (Genius: MLK/X and The Underground Railroad) stars as Terry Richmond, a former Marine who comes to a small town in Louisiana in order to bail out his cousin and prevent him from going to state penitentiary where Terry is afraid his cousin will get killed. The bail is $10,000. In order to raise the money, Terry had to sell his car, as well as sell his stake in a Chinese restaurant he owned. He decides to take the entire amount in cash to the bail bondsman and he decides to do so on his bicycle. In total, he has $36,000 in cash.
A lot of bail bondsman accept money orders or debit cards. Terry goes to a court clerk in a courthouse that like any modern-day institution should be able to process money orders or even electronic payments. It's never established that Terry has to pay in cash. Plot-wise, this whole thing only goes down if he is holding cash. Why Terry has to ride his bike to the courthouse is never truly established either. He could have and perhaps should have gotten a ride from a friend or taken a taxi. He says he's on a time-crunch to get his cousin out on bail. Yet, he doesn't think that getting a ride or taking a taxi would be faster and better, considering he's carrying tens of thousands in cash. Again, plot-wise, Terry riding his bike with a ton of cash is a contrivance for the plot. It makes no sense. It's there simply to justify the narrative going forward.
Don Johnson (Nash Bridges and Miami Vice) co-stars as Sandy Burnne, the chief of police for Shelby Springs, the aforementioned small town in Louisiana. Obviously, the Bayou State is known for its bayous and swamps. From his introduction, it's clear that Chief Burnne is for sure a "swamp creature," a possible redneck running an outfit full of such who probably see all Black men as drug dealers or thugs. It's not revealed at first, but the film unfurls the fact that Shelby Springs had a settlement against it, regarding a police brutality issue.
Included amongst Sandy's employees are two cops, including Officer Marston, played by David Denman (Mare of Easttown and The Office), and Officer Lann, played by Emory Cohen (Brooklyn and The Place Beyond the Pines). They definitely give off vibes of corruption, the kind of villainous cops that were depicted in Serpico (1973), which this film directly references. Yet, these guys are chubby and sloppy. They look like they spend more time eating donuts and sitting around not doing much of anything. If not for their badges or even their weapons, they would not pose much of a physical threat to Terry who is tall and built like an Adonis. Pierre even gives off a vibe that is one-half Poitier and one-half Stallone.
However, those badges and those weapons, as well as the legal authority behind them, do make the chubby, out-of-shape cops a threat. From things like Serpico to the TV series The Shield (2002) and more recently HBO's We Own the City (2022), we've seen how the police can use that authority to exploit the system and benefit themselves, even at the expense and hurting of others, particularly Black and Brown people. Saulnier's film simply takes that premise and turns it into a thriller with some action added for good measure. If this were the 1970's, this could have leaned more into the category of blaxploitation. Yet, Saulnier doesn't indulge in the race-related violence aspect or inject any sexuality that was a staple of blaxploitation. Saulnier's film is simply militaristic in its execution more than anything else, which is why the Rambo comparison is probably the most apt. Yet, Saulnier isn't critiquing the Vietnam War. If anything, he's commenting on the Black Lives Matter issue and empowers any Black man who fantasizes about literally fighting back against that kind of injustice, but never going as far as killing.
AnnaSophia Robb (The Carrie Diaries and Soul Surfer) rounds out the cast as Summer McBride, an employee at the courthouse who works in the clerk's office. She's studying to become a lawyer. Because of legal issues she's had, she's also working to get custody of her daughter back. She's the one who starts putting the pieces together about the police corruption here and what the greater conspiracy might be. She represents the same as what Imogen Poots represented in Green Room. Yet, Summer becomes more of a damsel in distress rather than what Poots' character became, which was more of an active participant in the action and the fighting back.
Although Green Room was more about murder and mayhem, this one is opposite in that it's not about watching people being killed, even though that threat exists in almost every scene. Saulnier underscores the notion of deescalation and pushes back against this idea of an eye-for-an-eye, which was inherent in Blue Ruin. His 2014 flick was about revenge. This film isn't, even though Terry is owed revenge and even though it seems as if he's going to pursue it. In that, this film is again mirroring First Blood, which despite its title doesn't end with that as its message, which contrasts something like Dev Patel's Monkey Man (2024) or Chad Stahelski's John Wick (2014).
Rated TV-MA for language, smoking and violence.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 11 mins.
Available on Netflix.
