(Credit: Netflix)

While it’s not a surprise for a brand new action movie to debut as the most popular film on Netflix, it is strange to see one of the streaming service’s original thrillers win widespread acclaim from critics.

Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry’s espionage caper The Union and Jennifer Lopez’s sci-fi adventure Atlas are just two recent exclusives that handily topped the charts despite being terrible. Big names and high concepts are an easy sell, with the decidedly smaller-scale Rebel Ridge a breath of fresh air by comparison.

If anything, that was the expected outcome, considering writer and director Jeremy Saulnier has barely put a foot wrong in his career so far. After debuting with 2007’s cult horror comedy Murder Party, the filmmaker broke through with the intense thriller Blue Ruin and followed it up with the nerve-shredding Green Room and the existential odyssey Hold the Dark.

Featuring a star-making performance from Aaron Pierre in his first-ever leading role in a movie, the actor plays Terry Richmond, a former soldier on a mission to post a bail bond to prevent his cousin from being sent to prison. However, when unscrupulous local law enforcement seizes the cash and tries to run him out of town, they get a lot more than they bargained for when he takes the fight to their door.

Furthermore, what makes Pierre’s turn even more impressive is that he was only drafted in at the last minute, with John Boyega initially set to headline Rebel Ridge before dropping out once principal photography had already started. It wasn’t until three months after the first day of shooting that Pierre was cast, not that anybody would notice based on how he makes the role his own.

An action thriller emerging as the number one most-watched film on Netflix isn’t an earth-shattering revelation, but as mentioned, one that scores rave reviews definitely is. On Rotten Tomatoes, Rebel Ridge currently holds a 95 per cent approval rating, making it a rare in-house genre flick that’s succeeding on the critical and viewership fronts.

The plot is somewhat reminiscent of Sylvester Stallone’s iconic First Blood in that it features a world-weary soldier drawn into a conspiratorial web in rural America that can only resolve itself through violence, but this ain’t no Rambo movie.

Sure, there are several impressive action sequences, but Saulnier and Pierre ground the narrative in a tangible reality that allows Rebel Ridge to pass many prescient, relevant, and socially conscious judgments on the current complexion of the United States.