Rebel Ridge And Home Made Potato
REBEL RIDGE (2024) Netflix
A man gets stopped by the police on the road, and they find a large amount of cash on him. He claims it’s for his cousin’s bail. The police confiscate the money and say they’ll only return it if the man can prove his innocence in court. But he doesn’t have that kind of time. Being a Marine veteran, he takes matters into his own hands, leading to intense, well-shot action scenes featuring a strong cast: Don Johnson ("Miami Vice"), James Cromwell ("LA Confidential"), the award-winning David Denman, the fierce AnnaSophia Robb ("Bridge to Terabithia"), and the leading man, Aaron Pierre, who looks like Eddie Murphy after serious gym time—calm yet powerful.
What the movie portrays is completely legal in the U.S. It’s called civil forfeiture, where law enforcement can seize assets they believe are connected to a crime. In America, the principle of habeas corpus has been so weakened that citizens now must prove their innocence in court. Lawmakers justify this as a tool in the war on drug traffickers who often carry large sums of cash.
Beyond the erosion of civil rights, the law also incentivizes police misconduct, as it allows departments to use the confiscated funds directly in their budgets. Coupled with the constant defunding of police forces, it essentially amounts to a privatization of the police, though it’s never called that. Following the privatization of prisons, now we’re seeing it in law enforcement too.
Here’s where I add my own observation: the slogan from well intended individuals to cut all police funding is colossal stupidity. It serves as a convenient cover for the actions of American conservatives.
The movie is good if you want to spend your night with some potato chips .
P.S I made my own
I don't know about those potato chips 😁...but the movie was great. It's a good way to inform people about the civil forfeiture scam. Most people wouldn't believe this is true, but it happens all over the country. Irrelevant, until it happens to you. Just like prison. Who cares what the conditions in prisons are? Who cares medical care is dreadful? Who cares you are subject to random violence? Who cares you have to work, and not get paid? That is, who cares, until it happens to you.
It's funny. We run around in this country and pretend these things don't happen, and yet there it is, looming for all of us (or our loved ones) if we misstep. Or if we are suspected of making a misstep. Then we fall down a dark tunnel. Once we're in there, nobody cares.
Jesus. America!
Edit. Just watched it. I mean, thank God for America - it strikes me that it has supplied me with a lot of entertaining corrupt cop dramas.
It's refreshing that the entertainment industry takes on controversial issues such as this and offers them up for consideration. I'm old, middle class and white, so I'm probably pretty safe from being incarcerated. But you never know.
I was looking up prison rates in Australia. It turns out, Australia has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, when Indigenous people are separated out. Do the artists in your country explore this theme? As a whole Australia has a relatively low imprisonment rate, but when indigenous people are considered this shoots up dramatically. In NT, for example, First Nations People constitute 88% of those imprisoned, although they comprise only 26% of the population.
Oh man yes. It's absolutely an issue here. They are more likely to die in custody, have a parent in prison, be incarcerated for stealing a chocolate bar. It's very much in the news and there are efforts to address it. Poor housing, unemployment, intergenerational trauma leading to dysfunctional families, dispossession, education levels - this is why 'celebrating' Australia day is such an issue. Australia always sweeps it under the carpet. It's a complex issue that many people are trying to address.
My flippant 'America!' was not just because of this law in the film but also things we read over here about student and medical debt, war on drugs, obesity, gun crime, school shootings and a litany of other crazy things we don't have here. We are absolutely not without our own flaws though.... For eg, domestic violence.
US is at the same time the most progressive and most outdated country . Some things are just crazy
My eyes are on those potatoes chip
🤣
A good movie and homemade chips!
Sounds heavenly!
Sending you an Ecency curation vote
Thanks... Gonna put it on now, needed a rec!
Edit. Just watched it. Enjoyed it. Well paced and an interesting central character, especially how he never had fought before outside of training.
Nothing like crispy chips to chew down a classic good cop bad cop film production!
Especially if they are home made because you have less guilts after.😂