In the realm of action films, the hero often resorts to violence to resolve conflicts. However, Jeremy Saulnier’s latest film, ‘Rebel Ridge’, challenges this trope by introducing a protagonist who navigates danger without taking a life.
How Jeremy Saulnier Created a Unique Action Hero in ‘Rebel Ridge’
If someone were only familiar with the earlier work of writer-director Jeremy Saulnier—specifically the lo-fi thrills of Blue Ruin and Green Room—they might associate him with a certain kind of protagonist. Like Macon Blair‘s Dwight or the late Anton Yelchin‘s Pat, Saulnier has certainly shown a deftness with regular guys who stumble into spectacularly violent misunderstandings and then have to claw their way out.
When crafting Rebel Ridge, his most recent feature, however, Saulnier wanted to see if he could try something new. For him, at least. “I was exploring my first ever competent protagonist,” he told Gold Derby.
The Hyper-Competent Hero: Terry Richmond
Terry Richmond, the hero of Rebel Ridge, as played in a star-making turn by Aaron Pierre, is more than competent. An expert in close-quarters combat, he’s hyper-competent. But when drama and suspense are all about complication, how do you build tension when the main character can physically get himself out of almost any situation?
Paperwork, apparently.
During his extensive research process, Saulnier became fascinated with the concept of civil forfeiture—a centerpiece of Rebel Ridge‘s plot—and with it, he discovered a problem that his “typical action movie hero” couldn’t throat-punch his way out of: a “quagmire of bureaucracy.”
Creating Tension Without Violence
So the filmmaker had found a source of tension for his hero, but he was still left with another creative problem. He wanted Terry to live, and he wanted the audience to buy it. “I want him to survive, but in the real world,” Saulnier said. “So how does he do that? By inflicting as little damage as possible, all the way up to the very end.”
But when the set-up of the movie is one highly trained man going up against an entire corrupt police department, the typical cinematic solutions to such dynamics would most realistically wind up with the hero either dying or breaking enough laws to be facing a lengthy prison sentence.
The answer was something John Rambo never considered: Terry simply wouldn’t kill anybody.
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“I definitely challenged myself with the question of, ‘Can I even make a movie with zero on-screen deaths? Am I capable of doing that?'” Saulnier said. “At the time—2018, 2019—I was like, ‘Maybe I want to just see if I can as an exercise.'”
Innovative Solutions for a Unique Narrative
If Terry was going to believably make it out of Shelby Springs, Louisiana, without a body count, Saulnier was going to need a creative solution. And he found one—in even more research.
At the same time he was looking into civil forfeiture, Saulnier read extensively about less lethal weapons like rubber bullets and tear gas, which were becoming more aggressively used by police forces across the country. When Saulnier found these tactics, he believed he had his answer. “I was like, ‘This is it, this is the key,'” he said. “It feels so poetic—if Terry were to use a less lethal arsenal against the police force—both thematically and practically.”
And so, out of dramatic necessity, Saulnier had suddenly found a character that wouldn’t feel like every other action hero on the block. As fans of the movie will attest, maybe a more exciting one for it.
“Terry could end this movie in the blink of an eye, and that’s part of his character,” Saulnier said. “He has his restraint and his loyalty to just adhering to social norms, the hierarchy that he knows from the Marines and just trying to follow the rules.”
