Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with extensive experience. Collier, or “CJ” to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy, and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. With his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he’s tackled a wide variety of articles.
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***Lanterns ***took the world by storm thanks to its stellar casting and grittier take on the Green Lantern mythos. However, its ace in the hole is Aaron Pierre. Pierre truly brings John Stewart to life, delivering a layered performance that unpacks years of complicated feelings toward his parents and his would-be mentor, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler). Once *Lanterns *hits its season finale, John is ready to take up the mantle of Green Lantern, which fans will see more of in next year’s Man of Tomorrow. But before he slipped on a Green Lantern ring, Pierre proved his action-hero bona fides by starring in one of Netflix’s biggest movies.
That movie is *Rebel Ridge, *written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier. *Rebel Ridge *follows Terry Richmond (Pierre) as he travels to Louisiana to bail his cousin Mike out of prison. Unfortunately, local police accost and arrest Terry; to make matters worse, police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson) refuses to turn over his bail money and arranges for Mike to be transferred early to a different prison. Burnne and his cronies soon learn the magnitude of their mistake when they discover that Terry’s a former Marine who trained heavily in martial arts, making him a living weapon. This simple premise propelled the movie to the top of Netflix’s charts, with over 400 million views to date,according to FlixPatrol.
From beginning to end, Rebel Ridge hooks viewers with its slowly unfolding mystery and action sequences**. With help from Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb), a courthouse assistant, Terry learns of a conspiracy Burnne and his fellow officers orchestrated. Those officers are willing to do anything to cover up their misdemeanors; when Summer first stumbles upon the conspiracy, Burnne’s officers drug her to make her look incompetent. Anyone who’s watched Jeremy Saulnier’s previous works, particularly Hold the Dark, knows that he can craft a truly gripping thriller, and *Rebel Ridge *is no exception.
Rebel Ridge’s action sequences also hit hard, in more ways than one. When Terry and Burnne face off early in the movie, Terry quickly disarms the sheriff, using him as a shield while disarming and knocking out the other cops. **It’s a skillful **martial arts display that sets the tone for what’s to come in later sequences. Even more surprising is the fact that Terry never kills anyone throughout Rebel Ridge’s runtime, preferring to knock them out or utilize weapons like tear gas instead of guns. In a world where action heroes like Jack Reacher aren’t shy about using lethal force, that’s a creative decision that stands out.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Believe it or not, Aaron Pierre originally wasn’t meant to star in Rebel Ridge. When Jeremy Saulnier first developed the project, he cast **John Boyega **as Terry Richmond. However, Boyega left the production, and Saulnier eventually cast Pierre in his place. The choice paid off, since many people who watched Rebel Ridge left awe-struck by Pierre’s performance. Rebel Ridge **may have helped him land the role of John Stewart, as *Lanterns *producer/writer **Tom King **revealed in an interview, saying he was blown away by Pierre’s acting.
“You’re watching it and going, ‘That*’s John Stewart’. *There are very few people you meet, and you’re like, Oh, that’s a superhero. Usually, you meet an actor in person. They’re a little smaller. They’re much more beautiful than normal people, don’t get me wrong. But they seem human. You meet Aaron, you’re like, ‘This is a superhero’. He has burning green eyes. He’s 6’3”. He has such a presence.”
Watching Lanterns, it’s hard not to compare John Stewart and Terry Richmond. Both are veteran Marines who can handle themselves in a fight. Both get swept up in a small-town conspiracy. And while Lanterns’ scope stretches to the intergalactic, its storytelling is just as strong as Rebel Ridge’s. If you want to see more of Aaron Pierre’s work, *Rebel Ridge *is definitely worth the watch.
