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If you have a look at Jeremy Saulnier’s filmography, you’ll notice a trend. The director has a habit of amassing a pretty high body count in his movies, something that he wanted to correct when writing his latest film, Rebel Ridge. The Netflix hit has its action hero purposefully avoiding killing everyone in sight, which was a conscious decision for the Rebel Ridge writer and director.

While talking to Vulture, Jeremy Saulnier went in-depth about the movie, going into what motivated him to write an action hero that specifically avoids killing his pursuers. It started as a bit of a personal challenge. “Rebel Ridge might have been an exploration of: Can I even f*cking do this? Can I make a movie that is not an overall feeling of dread, where there might be, despite some harrowing moments and some tragedy, some lift to it? Can I get through a screenplay without killing everybody in it?”

The result of that exploration was the story of a black man who is run off the road by cops and has $36,000 seized via civil forfeiture – a real-world process through which police take assets they find with little to no evidence or repercussions. Despite going through all the right channels to get his money back, Aaron Pierre’s Terry Richmond is forced to take matters into his own hands to uncover a disturbing conspiracy in the town. However, Terry specifically avoids killing any of the cops to avoid them coming down harder on him due to his race.

Rebel Ridge is one of the biggest titles on Netflix right now and presents a unique take on action films, both because of its political messaging and its low body count.

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