Review: An Action Movie About Civil Asset Forfeiture

Netflix's Rebel Ridge is a thrilling tale about an ordinary man wronged by an unjust system.

Netflix's Rebel Ridge is the rarest of things: a taut, tense thriller packed with rip-roaring action that is also a detailed and believably accurate take on public policy. Specifically, it's about civil asset forfeiture, the drug war, and municipal budget corruption. It's a civil asset forfeiture revenge film: part Rambo, part Reacher, part Institute for Justice legal brief.

Rebel Ridge follows an ex-Marine who gets knocked off his bike by a pair of local cops. In what is effectively a robbery, the cops seize the bag of cash he's carrying to bail out a family member. But because the cops suspect it's drug money, the theft is legal. So the Marine takes matters into his own hands, discovering a citywide budget conspiracy as he does.

Rebel Ridge will leave viewers with no doubt as to its point of view. But it's not what one might normally think of as a political movie: There are no grand moralizing speeches, no shameless, saccharine subplots designed to tug at your heartstrings. It's just a thrilling tale about an ordinary man wronged by an unjust system and getting back at it satisfyingly.