Rebel Ridge’s ending should teach other action movies a valuable lesson

Rebel Ridge ends with a smoky, action-packed standoff at its titular location – and by the time it’s over, it does something I wish other movies did more often.

Rebel Ridge, Netflix’s new movie directed by Blue Ruin and Green Room’s Jeremy Saulnier, has a simple premise. Terry (Aaron Pierre) manages to scrape together $36,000 to bail his cousin out of jail and set up a humble life for themselves.

As he cycles into Shelby Springs, two cops ram him off the road. It seems like racial profiling, and it is, but there’s something else they want: his money, which they ‘legally’ seize. As soon as they let him go, he tries to report their theft, which earns the “sh*t-eating” ire of the chief (Don Johnson).

Terry is left without many options: they’re hurting people, and they must be stopped.

Rebel Ridge just… ends, and that’s a good thing

When Terry makes it to the next town’s hospital, he does two things: he lifts Summer inside and makes sure someone attends to her, and he rips out the dash-cam recorder from the car. He sits down, comfortable in the knowledge that justice could be done, and the movie ends.

There’s no epilogue, no funeral for Mike, no further details about Sandy, Evan, or Summer.

Saulnier doesn’t “put too much sauce on it”, to quote Terry. It’s unclear if Summer will get custody again, we don’t know if Sandy will actually be charged for his scheming, and Evan’s blood loss might be fatal.

It should all be okay, but it might not. That’s a great place to end Terry’s story, because he’s done all he can do: he exercised as much control as he could over the situation, now all he can do is wait.

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There’s a lot to be said about a movie that just… ends. Star Wars (as in, A New Hope) destroys the Death Star, and then in a short scene (one minute and 40 seconds long) the heroes are honored for their efforts. Roll credits.

On the other hand, take a movie like Casino Royale, a borderline masterpiece that just keeps going after Vesper’s death. The Tomorrow War should have ended when Chris Pratt’s character made it back from the future… but it doesn’t.

Rebel Ridge could have kept going; we could have cut to two months later with Sandy getting sentenced and Terry and Summer looking after her kid. But the movie ends on a constant stream of adrenaline – your heart is still thumping when it cuts to black. It’s smart to leave an audience with that high.

Resolution is important, but the urge to tie everything up is exhausting; if a character’s arc feels complete, that should take precedence over plot.

Rebel Ridge ending explained

Rebel Ridge ends with Chief Sandy Burrne facing arrest for his crimes (embezzling, wrongful arrest, attempted murder – the works!), while Terry gets Summer and officer Evan to safety out of the town. As they’re taken into hospital, he recovers the dash-cam footage from the car, ensuring the shootout will be reported.

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Terry manages to infiltrate the police station, restraining Sandy and another office while he takes back his $10,000 (he even leaves $26,000, as that was their original deal). He pays the bond, and seconds later he’s tased and arrested.

When he wakes up, Evan (David Denman) – one of the officers who originally stopped him – takes him for a drive with Sandy, who says he’s keen to “de-escalate” the situation. Terry agrees, but Sandy hasn’t suddenly become a good person: his cousin was stabbed behind bars, a direct consequence of the police preventing his safe release before he was killed.

Sandy tells Terry he has two options: he takes back all of the money, plus a brand-new truck paid for in full, or he faces 30 years minimum for his actions at the station. He swallows his rage and accepts the first offer, wishing to avoid further conflict.

Why was Mike killed?

Mike was targeted in prison as he was a witness in an earlier murder case, and his testimony provided evidence that put a high-level gang member in prison.

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When Terry first meets Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), he explains he was only arrested for possession of marijuana. “Before, out east, he got into some deep sh*t. Ended up a cooperating witness on a capital murder charge. Dude he helped put away was pretty high up in the gang,” he says.

“If he’s spotted, he’ll get swarmed,” Terry warns.

The terms of his deal with Sandy were clear: he’d keep the $26,000, but he’d let Mike go before he’s taken to a state prison. Terry arrives three minutes late, but it doesn’t matter; Sandy never planned to keep his word.

When Sandy and Evan take Terry on a drive, they eventually arrive at a hospital. “Your cousin is being medevaced here as we speak. He’s coming from the infirmary… he was attacked just out of processing. When I talked to corrections, they said he was stabbed up pretty good,” Sandy tells him.

Later, Terry sits by Mike’s bed after he’s already passed away from his wounds.

Why were the police taking people’s money?

The police nearly bankrupted Shelby Springs when an “illegal search snowballed into a wrongful death”, with the settlement leaving them uninsurable. To sustain the department (and the town’s funding), officers started seizing people’s money.

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Sandy describes everything they’ve seized (money and weaponry, plus a margarita machine) as “their survival… out of six towns, we’re the last in the parish with our own force.”

“They cut our budget, and they say they’re gonna issue bonds but they never do. Crawl up our ass for police reform, but they won’t fund it.”

Later in the film, the town’s judge (James Cromwell) further explains: “Illegal search snowballed into a wrongful death. Settlement damn near bankrupted the town. His department was deemed uninsurable. Got a year to modernize, clean up its act.

“We wanted [Sandy] gone. The reform mandate was a plot to shut him down and hand over our contract to the state police. There was no money for him to comply.”

In his first month, he racked up $100,000 in forfeitures and cut everyone in on it. “That money flows back into debt service, payroll, public works. That’s Christmas lights in December, and a nice little old tax cut on top.”

“Serpico” explained

At the end of Rebel Ridge, officer Evan is revealed to be “Serpico”, Summer’s inside man in the Shelby Springs police department.

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Serpico is a reference to Al Pacino’s 1973 movie of the same. He plays Detective Frank Serpico, a real-life whistleblower who reported corruption within the NYPD.

The thing is… Evan’s morality is pretty murky. He’s the one who stops and steals money from Terry in the first place, but he pulls his gun on Steve (Emory Cohen) when he threatens to kill Terry in front of everyone. Perhaps he could deal with the guilt of theft, but murder was too much.

Does anyone die?

Nobody dies in Rebel Ridge, which is a big part of Terry’s strategy: he immobilizes everyone who tries to kill him with non-lethal force. One guy gets his arm broken, and another gets his face beaten to a pulp… that’s okay, right?

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Terry survives with a few bruises and a bullet wound, but he makes a point of only hurting people to the point they can’t try to kill him anymore.

Steve suffers the most: Terry punches him in the face over and over again, and when he clings onto the car window as he drives away, Summer pushes him away while they’re at a high speed.

We last see Sandy with blood dribbling down his face after officer Jessica (Zsane Jhe) rams him off the road in the climactic chase, but he’s fine (apart from probably going to prison).

Rebel Ridge is on Netflix now. In the meantime, check out our list of the best action movies of all time, read our breakdown of The Perfect Couple’s ending, and find other new movies to watch this month.