Jeremy Saulnier’s extremely exciting new Netflix film Rebel Crest sits firmly in the action category. But while stylized action hits like the John Wick series or the HiGH&LOW films achieve their effect through exaggerated action stunts, the throwdowns in Rebel Crest are simple and rationalized enough to appear completely believable.
Previous outstanding Saulnier films such as Blue Ruin And Green Room They depict violence in a drastic and bloody way, but anchor bloody conflicts in reality. Rebel Crest has more of a blockbuster feel in terms of direction and ending than those films. Still, the fights are, as Saulnier repeatedly put it in a preview with Polygon, consciously and intentionally “sloppy.”
“I can watch an action hero take out a whole building full of people and I’m impressed by the stunt work,” says Saulnier. “The choreography is breathtaking and I love this ride. But I feel much. I don’t feel the harrowing nature of what one might experience when competing against another human being. So with [Rebel Ridge’s] “When it came to choreography, I was always there to thwart the stunt team’s efforts to make things cooler, bigger, more satisfying. Like, ‘Take it down a notch!’ or ‘I don’t think that would happen!’ I was always there to make it sloppy and awkward.”
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for Rebel Ridge.]
Rebel Crest Stars The Underground RailroadAaron Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a black Marine veteran and martial arts instructor who visits a small Southern town to get his cousin out of prison. He has a tight deadline to meet and his cousin’s life is on the line, but the white local police start harassing him as soon as he arrives in town. They steal his bail money under the guise of asset seizure and threaten him with jail or worse if he fights back.
Terry is a polite, cautious and level-headed man. It is difficult to see Rebel Crest without thinking about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the world and me and other important writings by and about Black parents have “the conversation” with their children about how to handle racially motivated encounters with the police. Terry is clearly familiar with this dynamic and knows the importance of keeping his composure even in the face of outrageous provocations and outright bullying. Still, it’s obvious that at some point he will snap and fight back against the injustice and abuse the police inflict on him – especially the local police chief, Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson).
The whole film is a long, tense wait to see which straw will break Terry’s back. And there is the natural expectation that – like Sylvester Stallone’s similar military veteran in “The 1982” First bloodand he has to deal with equally borderline small-town cops – Terry will leave a cathartic trail of bodies behind when he finally stops controlling himself.
But Saulnier did not want Rebel Crest to end with a wave of dramatic neck-breaking and body-smashing: He wanted “a traditional American action film, ideally with more artistry.” And he wanted Terry to feel vulnerable.
“Aaron, myself and the stunt team really worked hand in hand. I did research and saw how martial arts disciplines work in the real world,” Saulnier says. “It mostly comes down to sloppy grappling and brute force. Of course there is a certain amount of technique and knowledge involved, but a lot of it is about leverage and position and not so much about fancy movements. Wire work was never used, except for a few things to relieve people. I relied on my strength, which is an uncomfortable reality, and that created a more realistic fighting environment and more real hand-to-hand combat. And that, for me, created a greater dramatic impact – a greater emotional experience than those kinds of big spectacles.”
Image: Netflix
Saulnier laughs a little in our interview when he suggests that it wasn’t until the finished film that his stunt crew understood why he resisted traditional action. “We finally showed it to the crew in New Orleans last week, and I think they understood exactly what I was trying to achieve – the emotionally charged, subjective experience of Terry Richmond fighting his way through these adversaries,” he says.
“There was one instance where we had some pretty great choreography, and I was in the editing room watching it. And I was very proud of our work, as an MMA fan and as someone who has researched a lot more fights than I care to admit. But it didn’t feel real. So some of the coolest choreography got cut out, because if it didn’t feel completely real based on Aaron’s physicality and his opponent, it had to go. That was painful, but gratifying. The message to the stunt team was: We pay tribute to so many films, but we have to go our own way and make it a genre of its own.”
Part of that great emotional payoff was that Terry and his allies in the film got a more positive ending than fans of Saulnier’s other works might expect. “I think people will be surprised when they finally see this film at how much nuance and complexity there is and the predicament that everyone is in,” Saulnier says. “I’m not trying to excuse any behavior, but I’m just trying to understand why we humans are in such conflict – and hopefully provide a little catharsis, which is new for me. You know, I’m used to movies giving you a terrible punch in the gut that leaves the audience in a state of shock or fear. And this film, I think, crosses that bar. We’ve had almost euphoric reactions. When you hear people in the theater experiencing this film together – it’s really heartening and strangely uplifting.”
Rebel Crest is now streaming on Netflix.
