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Rebel Ridge, now streaming on Netflix, is a riveting action-packed movie. While there is a current of racial tension between the black hero and a mostly white police department, the movie shuns left-wing propaganda about alleged pervasive systemic racism in America’s police departments. Rebel Ridge focuses instead on the universalistic theme of an innocent individual reluctantly drawn into confronting a corrupt justice system.

Rebel Ridge draws upon the genre of a mistreated former member of the military taking on a hostile local police chief and his deputies. Rebel Ridge’s writer-director Jeremy Saulnier acknowledged his movie’s thematic connection with the 1982 blockbuster First Blood. He noted that “once I realized by setting up the premise that it was going to be a guy against a small town police force, of course it’s ‘First Blood.’” But Mr. Saulnier had more in mind than making a typical action movie. He explained that “I am very interested in examining corrupt systems — how they are built and what people tell themselves to disavow or justify their own part in them.”

The story begins with a black man, Terry Richmond (played by Aaron Pierre), who is riding his bicycle on a country road when a police car catches up and rams into him. The white police officers descending upon Terry first claim that he matches the description of a suspect involved in a bike theft and search him. They find thousands of dollars in Terry’s possession that he was carrying to bail out his cousin from jail. Even after confirming that Terry’s bike was not the stolen one that they were looking for, the police officers make up an excuse to seize Terry’s cash.

Terry later attempts to file a complaint at the town of Shelby Springs’ local police station, which he subsequently learns is hopelessly corrupt. When Terry politely asks for his money back, the chief of police, Sandy Burnne (played by Don Johnson), cavalierly rejects Terry’s request. Terry leaves the police station empty-handed but does not abandon his efforts to retrieve his money in time to save his cousin from being transferred to state prison where his life would be in mortal danger. Spoiler alert – Terry is too late after the police chief double crosses him on a deal that Terry thought he had worked out as a win-win solution for both sides.

The action moves, with twists and turns, from tense dialogue between its two main protagonists – Terry, an ex-Marine and hand-to-hand combat instructor, and Sandy Burnne, the corrupt police chief – towards increasingly intensive rounds of violence. Along the way, a white court clerk, Summer McBride (played by AnnaSophia Robb), is drawn by her own troubles into the thickening plot. Summer and Terry discover deep-seated corruption enveloping the town’s police force and justice system. After Terry and Summer are pushed too far by the police, they decide to fight the corruption head-on by searching for definitive proof and exposing it to the light of day. Not everything proceeds quite as planned, but a measure of justice wins out at the end.

The acting is first-rate, especially by Aaron Pierre who plays Terry Richmond. Mr. Pierre succeeds in portraying a complex character thrust deeper and deeper into a web of corruption against his will. Mr. Pierre’s character, Terry Richmond, uses the discipline he honed as a Marine to move methodically but resolutely from trying calmly to defuse a potentially explosive situation in a rational manner to using force as a last resort. Don Johnson plays the cynical, corrupt police chief squaring off against Terry to a tee.

“Terry’s objective, should he find himself in a situation which has progressed to the level of physicality and/or violence, is to bring that situation to a conclusion in a way that nobody is irreparably harmed,” Pierre said about his character as quoted by Netflix. “The mantra that we use in the film is ‘one mind, any weapon.’”

Terry Richmond is clearly Rebel Ridge’s hero while Sandy Burnne is his corrupt adversary. However, this movie is more nuanced than the typical pure good versus pure evil action movie. We learn that the police chief, with the town judge’s assistance, has been using the ill-gotten gains from setting unreasonably high bail for minor offenses and seizing defendants’ assets for what he considers to be a justifiable purpose. The scheme is intended to make up for shortfalls in the town’s budget, including funds available to the local police department, caused by severe budget cuts over which the local town government has no control. “Chief Sandy Burnne is bifurcated in that he’s trying to help his town, but at other people’s expense,” Don Johnson said about his character as quoted by Netflix.

One key takeaway from Rebel Ridge is that the damage the police chief and his deputies caused to innocent people with their corrupt scheme and cover-up far outweighed on a moral scale their goal of rescuing their town’s finances. Simply put, the ends do not justify the means.

I highly recommend Rebel Ridge as a well-paced action thriller that steadily builds up viewers’ anticipation towards an exciting conclusion, which it delivers, while being thought-provoking at the same time.