-This movie understands the appeal of First Blood better than any of the actual First Blood sequels.

-This should be a megastar-making performance for Aaron Pierre. Can a performance in a Netflix thriller make you a megastar? I hope so.

-I’m not opposed to an action movie with lots of carnage when the material calls for it. In Rebel Ridge Pierre’s character is an extremely intelligent ex-Marine up against a corrupt police force; it doesn’t make sense for this character to start mowing down his enemies. Instead, he’s trying not to kill people. Which is not that easy to do under the circumstances! In the middle of fights, he’s constantly disarming opponents, emptying their weapons, kicking aside pistols. (To be fair, he does give at least one or two men compound fractures. The dude ain’t a pacifist.) It actually makes the action more interesting, and pretty novel.

-Second act loses a little bit of steam (and gets surprisingly complicated). Great as Pierre is, he’s at his best sparring mano a mano with Don Johnson, whose scenes are mostly clustered in the beginning and the end. But that beginning and end? Whooooooooo they cook.