Rebel Ridge’s Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) didn’t sign up for this. Years after his service as a Marine, he works at a Chinese restaurant and tries to stay out of trouble. But that doesn’t stop trouble from coming for him — and come for him it does, when he’s pulled over on his bike by a pair of police officers in the fictional small town of Shelby Springs.

It’s a familiar circumstance that soon spirals into something else entirely. “While it rings true, I think the audience will be surprised by where the storyline actually goes,” writer-director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Hold the Dark) told Netflix. Terry is on his way to bail his cousin Mike (C.J. LeBlanc) out of jail. But Terry hits a snag when the officers who stop him seize the cash he’s pulled together for bail money. 

With that, Terry is tossed into a whirlwind of police corruption and small-town prejudice. The police chief (Don Johnson) is out to get him; court assistant Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb) is on his side; and Terry himself has a set of skills that just might get him out of this nightmare alive. “Rebel Ridge taps into our collective frustrations and, after a harrowing two hours, offers some catharsis,” Saulnier said. Join us on the road to that catharsis — and get the answers to your biggest questions along the way.

Is Rebel Ridge based on a true story? 

No, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be. “This film is not based on a particular incident, but elements of it could certainly happen,” Saulnier said. “I’m interested in examining corrupt systems — not so much how they’re built, but how they persist.” The specifics of Terry’s journey in Rebel Ridge — legal challenges, police harassment — won’t be strictly familiar to every viewer, but his push against the boundaries of Shelby Springs’ bureaucracy will ring true to anyone who’s been stuck on the line with their phone company for hours. “For this movie, I wanted to tap into how the rest of us react to said [corrupt] systems,” Saulnier said, “from corrupt politicians down to the endless loop of a customer service call gone wrong.”

Allyson Riggs

Is civil asset forfeiture real?

Yes. Civil asset forfeiture is the legal framework that allows the Shelby Springs police to seize Terry’s cash with no due process. “It’s this insane loophole in anti-drug regulation that allows law enforcement to seize property from ordinary citizens without any proof of criminal activity,” Saulnier said. He built the whole movie around the concept: “I thought it’d make a great premise for a movie because of how unifying it is — it pisses everyone off.”

As Summer explains to Terry early on in the film, asset forfeiture holds up in court because a citizen’s money has no civil rights of its own. She even points out, amusingly, that the docket for the case will simply read “The Township of Shelby Springs vs. $36,000.” 

Saulnier’s preparation for Rebel Ridge began with intensive research. “As with all my projects, I start out with a keen interest in a subject, then research the hell out of it,” Saulnier said. “Once I have a firm grasp of the material, I just start writing. If I hit a roadblock in the process, I research some more.” The director’s tenacity is a trait his protagonist Terry Richmond shares as well. 

The Trailer for Rebel Ridge

Who is Terry Richmond in Rebel Ridge?

The cops of Shelby Springs get far more than they bargained for when they drag Terry into their mess. When deputies Steve Lann (Emory Cohen) and Evan Marston (David Denman) knock him off his bike, they think they’re harassing a passerby. But in reality, Terry is a Marine Corps Martial Arts Program graduate who specializes in non-lethal, extremely effective combat. 

“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 told Netflix about his character. “The mantra that we use in the film is ‘one mind, any weapon.’ ” Pierre himself has practiced boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Muay Thai for years, so Terry’s skill set came easily to him. 

It doesn’t come quite as easily to the Shelby Springs Police Department. When Terry’s efforts to politely reclaim his property are rebuffed, he infiltrates the police station and makes a forcible deal with Don Johnson’s Chief Sandy Burnne: He’ll settle for taking back $10,000 for his cousin’s bail and allow the police to keep the rest. “Chief Sandy Burnne is bifurcated in that he’s trying to help his town, but at other people’s expense,” Johnson told Netflix. Burnne’s budget has been cut, and an informant in his department leaked to Summer that money seized through civil asset forfeiture is helping to keep the police department — and Shelby Springs itself — on its feet. 

Terry is adamant that his cousin not spend too much time in state prison; Mike was once a cooperating witness in a murder case, so his life could be in danger. Burnne agrees — but too late. Before Mike can be delivered safely to Terry, he’s killed in prison.

Allyson Riggs

What is Chief Burnne’s plan in Rebel Ridge?

Mike’s death makes Terry even more determined to unravel the conspiracy of Shelby Springs — even as his and Summer’s situation gets even more dangerous. To scare the pair off their investigation, the police invade Summer’s home and inject her with drugs. When she’s randomly drug-tested at work, her world is shattered, but she continues to fight. “Summer isn’t just helping Terry because she’s a good person,” Robb told Netflix. “She has stakes. She’s backed into a corner as well, and she decides to make the bold, brave choice.”

Terry and Summer ultimately get to the bottom of the Shelby Springs Police Department’s scheme, by consulting with guilt-ridden Judge Logston (James Cromwell). Logston has been aiding Burnne in his effort to fund the town by hiking up bail and boosting defendants’ jail time. It’s a ruthless way to make up for budget cuts, and the judge commits suicide soon after Terry and Summer leave. “There is an economic element within the script and story that I’ve never seen before, and I thought was interesting,” Johnson said. That economic element has visceral consequences. 

In a last-ditch effort to reveal Burnne’s corruption, Terry and Summer break into town hall to recover dash cam footage — their hope is that photographic evidence of police misdeeds will lead to a scandal, and decisive reform. 

But the police, who are preparing to burn the building down, get there first. Terry manages to seize an SD card containing vital evidence, but Summer is captured. Terry strikes back by kidnapping a rookie officer and making a hostage deal with the police. They’ll meet at a landmark called — you guessed it — Rebel Ridge.

Allyson Riggs

What happens at the end of Rebel Ridge?

Terry doesn’t head for Rebel Ridge. Instead, he aims for the police station once again, raiding the armory and subduing Burnne. But after doing so, he’s stopped by Deputy Jessica Sims (Zsané Jhé). Terry believes he’s home free, assuming she’s Summer’s informant. That assumption is a mistake, and soon Terry is preparing to receive a bullet to the head. 

But salvation arrives from an unexpected source: Officer Marston, one of the cops who detained Terry in the first place. Terry quickly realizes that Marston is Summer’s informant. As Terry and the cops converge for a final showdown, the police station parking lot begins to resemble the kind of war zone Terry thought he’d left behind at the end of his military service.

For the action sequences in Rebel Ridge, Saulnier brought things back to basics. “I wanted to see a more realistic depiction of hand-to-hand combat on screen,” he said. “My strength and strategy in this movie was to stay grounded and not reach for that level of over-choreographed spectacle we’ve grown accustomed to.”

A sequence in which Terry drags Marston behind a parked car for cover took a few takes. “[Denman] had stunt pads, he was safe, but we had a wire on him just so Aaron wouldn’t burn himself out after four or five takes because David is a big guy, 6-foot-4,” Saulnier recalled. “After we got a few in the can, Aaron asked us if he could drag David on his own for real, without any wires, and everyone agreed to give it a shot. That showcases Aaron’s dedication. And that, of course, is the take that made it into the movie.”

Terry takes out multiple officers using items from the police armory and his own non-lethal skill set, recording all the carnage with a police cruiser’s dash cam. Then he and Marston rescue a drugged Summer and drive off, with Burnne in hot pursuit. At the last possible second, Deputy Sims has a change of heart and rams her boss off the road. Terry delivers Marston and Summer to the hospital, secures the dash cam, and sits down on a bench. Having gone through some of society’s darkest nightmares —  civil asset forfeiture, police violence, post-traumatic stress — and come out on the other side, he closes his eyes, finally able to rest.

That moment of peace is another impulse Saulnier shares with his protagonist. “If there’s any one thing I’m going for, it’s simply to activate an involuntary response in the audience,” Saulnier said. “As far as what an audience might take away from it all, that’s thankfully out of my hands now. But I’m fully at peace knowing I gave it everything I got.”

Rebel Ridge is now streaming on Netflix.