Review

Culture

Film & TV

Justice

Race

18 September 2024

6 min read

Rebel Ridge switches the code on corrupt coppers and body counts

An action movie tackling the all-time low trust in public bodies.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Two men stand off against each other, one holds a holstered gun.

Don Johnson and Aaron Pierre.

Netflix.

I wasn’t expecting to emotionally connect with this straight-to-Netflix action movie but Rebel Ridge is not a normal action film. It may be sitting at the number one position on the Netflix film charts, with its echoes of a classic Jack-Reacher-style thriller, but where it surprises and stands apart is in its challenging and nuanced handling of race, violence and corruption.

Race

Like Lee Child’s character Jack Reacher, Terry Richmond played by Aaron Pierre is a former US military officer. He is a private person, self-confident, respectful, comfortable with his own company and willing to go the extra mile to help a cousin who has got himself in a mess. Despite his lowly job in a restaurant, Terry happens to have financial means as well as expert survival and hand-to-hand combat skills. He is also Black.

The opening sequence shows Terry cycling into a small town when he is accosted by two local – white - police officers. Suddenly the dynamic changes. The determined, self-confident, resourceful man becomes the downtrodden object of a series of abuses and injustices. Terry tries everything to deescalate the problem, without success. Nevertheless, he remains polite, referring always to the officers who deal with him as “Sir”, and finding things to thank them for.

I found myself relating to this, remembering times that I have had to deal with abusive power and hoping that if I remain calm, polite and respectful, I could win the other side over. Some have called this “respectability politics” – the pressure on marginalized groups, particularly Black people, to behave in a manner that aligns with dominant cultural norms - including being overly-polite or restrained - especially in the face of abusive power or injustice. Another term for this is "code-switching," where minority groups feel the need to adjust behaviour, language, or appearance to fit into a different cultural context, often in response to systemic power imbalances.

Terry tries everything to get out of his situation with minimum disruption. But things deteriorate so far so quickly that Terry realises that nothing he can say or do will allow him to extricate himself. Cornered in this way, he is forced to pursue justice by other means.

It is hard not to see this film without remembering the death of George Floyd. That terrible incident in May 2020 highlighted racial disparities in policing in the US: 13 per cent of the American population is Black, yet they account for about 25-28 per cent of police killings each year. According to the Mapping Police Violence project, Black people are up to three times more likely to be killed by police than white people - between 2013 and 2022, about 7,000 Black Americans were killed by police.

The UK’s police services have had to admit to similar disparities. Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched compared to white people in England and Wales. In London, where stop-and-search powers are more frequently used, Black individuals make up around a third of all stop and searches, despite representing about 13 per cent of the city's population. From arresting, handcuffing, the use of taser, remanding in custody and more, data shows that racial disparities are evident across the service. These disparities undermine trust in the police service, which in turn can inhibit the cooperation and information sharing needed to reduce crime and protect citizens.

The racial tensions that permeate the movie give viewers a glimpse into what it is like to be mistrustful of those who are supposed to help and serve us. As such it is a masterpiece in raising awareness of racism wherever it is experienced, and the fear and injustice that go with it.

Violence

Terry is huge, athletic and highly skilled. Like most movies of this genre, I was expecting the protagonist to be pushed to breaking point, thereby unleashing a wave of violence so severe and overwhelming that he becomes an unstoppable killing machine.

In Taken, Bryan Mills, played by Liam Neeson, kills almost 100 people, mainly of Albanian nationality, by gunfire, strangulation and electrocution, on his quest to protect his family. In the more recent John Wick series of films, Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, a retired assassin, kills over 400 people in a wave of violence initiated by the theft of a car and the killing of a puppy.

But Rebel Ridge is different. A key thread in the movie is the use of Escalation of Force–Non-Lethal Effects (EoF-NLE), meaning the use of verbal warnings, warning shots, non-lethal explosives and physical restraint tools like tasers or pepper spray that are supposed to minimise the risk of injury and death. In the film, the corrupt police officers have not only illegally raised money to buy this equipment they have also profited from renting out their EoF-NLE to third parties.

Terry shows himself to be a different kind of hero, with a stronger moral compass than the police service as he uses their own EoF-NLE against them. On one occasion we watch as he loads and racks his gun, only to use it in self-defence. He is an avenging angel unleashed who refuses to kill people. There are plenty of showdowns, but the final total body count is one.

Corruption

Many action movies, Taken and John Wick included, contain little social commentary. Rebel Ridge, on the other hand, is prepared to tackle some significant social issues. The corruption around EoF-NLE and militarisation of local police forces is one example. The other questionable practice that gets much discussion is “civil asset forfeiture” - an anti-drug regulation that allows a police officer to seize cash and other valuables with no due process. Both issues as portrayed in this film highlight the wider question of accountability of policing, as well as the potential for corruption that comes with its absence.

Indeed, it's not just about ‘bent coppers’ – the whole justice system is shown to be at risk in this film. The local judge is implicated in the corruption, and the state prison, as expected, fails to protect. The impact is pervasive. We see a conflicted black female police officer, a court worker struggling to get court support, and many others who stand idly by because they don’t seem to know what is right or good anymore.

At a time when trust in public bodies is at an all-time low – this film, despite its non-violent and subversive tropes, presents to us a heroic rebel with a higher moral compass who goes against the flow and pushes back against the system to try and fix things. It may not restore faith in our society’s institutions – but perhaps it does restore faith in something else.

Although the director, Jeremy Saulnier, claims Rebel Ridge was not based on a true story, I cannot help thinking of a true story that might have inspired it. I am reminded of Jesus Christ, the most famous rebel in history, who was killed in a showdown on a ridge outside Jerusalem for speaking out – lashing out even - against the corruption in the religious institutions of his time, for taking an anti-racist stance, and for living in a way that went against the flow. It reminds me of the lengths he went to get those he loved freed from the mess they had gotten themselves into, and the price he paid to try and save them from certain death. Like Rebel Ridge, the ending to that story remains open: who will take up the call and will true justice ever be served?

Article

Culture

Film & TV

Trauma

Work

23 September 2025

5 min read

What would Pascal make of Emmy-winner Severance?

Locking ourselves away in a room still doesn’t work

Rick Hansen

Rick writes and speaks on leadership, transformation, and culture.

Pascal ponders a steampunk TV showing Severance.

Nick Jones/Copilot.

Severance, the hit Apple TV series, garnered the most Emmy nominations at the star-studded 77th Emmy Awards. Colors and fame popped on the vibrant red carpet as Hollywood’s elite strolled along the walkway, exuding famous smiles, elegant evening wear, and their signature flair.

It was strikingly ironic, however, to see the Severance actors in such formal attire, ripe with ready-made smiles. Their presence was, well, very Hollywood. This contrasted sharply with their on-screen characters, who are typically set against a dark, desolate backdrop of despair, compelled to force smiles as if it were an immense burden on their very souls.

The stark contrast between the opulent Hollywood red carpet and the sterile, bland workspace Severance is set in underscores a core theme in the show: the tension between faith and doubt, belief and despair, light and darkness.

In the show, the main character Mark S. grapples with the challenge of navigating his own tension in his own calibrated nightmare of hope and despair. He has to cope with the sudden loss of his wife, and it's suffocating him.

His company, Lumon, helps him deal with this loss through a surgical procedure called Severance. This procedure implants a chip in his brain that creates two separate identities: an "Innie" for work and an "Outie" for home. These two co-existing selves are emotionally, physically, and psychologically unaware of each other, essentially severing the person's whole self into two pieces. Whatever they are trying to bury or escape, becoming “severed” keeps the person’s “Innie” from dealing with this delicate paradox of the “Outie”. In short, they don’t have to choose the light or the dark.

For Mark S., severance offers a thin thread of disguised hope, a potential breach in his unbearable pain.

In his Pensées, French philosopher Blaise Pascal explores this intrinsic human tension between faith and doubt, belief and despair - a fundamental aspect of the human experience. He says, "In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t."

He posits that the evidence between the light and the shadow is just enough to sway us in one direction or the other. It’s calibrated on either side allowing us to lean into our personal autonomy. We are free to choose the hope of the light or succumb to the despair of the darkness; the outcome depends entirely on what we choose.

Leaning into Pascal, the act of severance relieves Mark S. of this beautiful yet complicated tension.

A review on Reddit said it simply, “Severing allows Mark to just literally shut his brain off, get the work done, then go home and distract himself with TV and alcohol... he doesn’t want to let it go.”

It’s real pain and he doesn’t know how to manage it. The shadows are pervasive. However, by choosing severance, Mark avoids the light and the shadows. The more he relies on severance for hope or healing by attempting to bury the shadows, the more the shadows intensify - the shadows Pascal says will blind us in our disbelief.

The battle that Mark S. faces embodies the very tension that Pascal is surfacing. This tension of choosing the light or the shadows is something we all must face.

We all carry shadows wrapped in our own circumstances. I think many of us would likely prefer to avoid confronting them. They are painful. They are dark. They are heavy. In truth, if we had the choice I think many of us would likely choose an escape instead of dealing with the darkness, with the secrets and the pain that hide in our souls.

For example, many of us show up to work or to life like Mark S. in some version of our “Innie” - a professional face of compliance, rule following, corporate persona, goal oriented, etc. and leave the version of our “Outie” at home alone and isolated to wrestle with our demons, with our painful, confusing questions. We curate our internal messiness and disguise ourselves with our own “Innie”.

For some, our day job is an actual version of a self-imposed severance.

I wish this tension between the light and shadows Pascal speaks of was less “tense” to say it plainly, and yet it is an inherent, essential part of the human experience.

This faith that both we and Mark S. wrestle with, by its very nature, lacks complete clarity; this tension is, in fact, a testament to this profound mystery of life itself. It's the wonder of life. There’s just enough data for us to lean into the light and also just as much for us to lean into the shadows. What we see depends on what we choose to believe in.

This tension is similarly addressed in the Biblical book of Hebrews. It highlights Pascal's subtle paradox and defines faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

The freedom to choose “the substance of things hoped for”, this inherent tension of Pascal, is the true marvel and mystery of life. It’s both messy and wonderful.

Our capacity for choice, to engage with the light and shadows and to lean into one over the other as we wish is a profound gift.

While some find this very tension a reason for disbelief, Pascal tugs on this and says it's actually fundamental to belief, it's a wonderful component of the human condition - a true gift. It hints at the very essence of hope. It’s the same process we must engage when choosing to believe in or not to believe in something beyond our selves, and ultimately beyond this world.

This struggle, the shadows of pain and suffering and the light of hope and belief is precisely what makes us alive; it’s what makes us human. It points us to the heavens where hope and faith were authored.

The question isn’t whether we have an “Innie” or an “Outie”, a tension of light and darkness, of faith and doubt. We all do. We all wrestle with this essence. The question is do we have the courage to wrestle with these internal conflicts, enabling us to bring our whole selves - our flaws and pains, our joys and hopes - into every interaction.

This tension Pascal speaks of is ultimately a mirror that shows us, us. We are all tempted to numb our pain, divide ourselves, to compartmentalize the shadows. But Pascal reminds us there is always enough light to see, if we choose it.

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