It’s hard for a film to slip past me as a movie-obsessed nerd, but when my dad texted me Thursday and asked if I wanted to see She Rides Shotgun, I had no idea it even existed. So I went in blind, not knowing what to expect. Long story short: it blew me away.
The film opens with a 9-year-old girl, Polly (Ana Sophia Heger), waiting outside her school for her mom to come pick her up. Instead, it’s Taron Egerton that shows up as Nate, Polly’s ex-con father. While he tells Polly everything is OK, it is clear to the audience and to Polly that’s not the case.
We soon learn what’s wrong: Nate has done something in prison to draw the ire of a white power gang known as Aryan Steel, who have put out a hit on Nate and his family, including Polly. The gang has already killed Polly’s mother and stepfather, which we and Polly learn from a newscast, except law enforcement believes Nate to be the killer — and Polly’s abductor. Soon, the two are on the run from both the gang and the cops as Nate puts his everything into trying to deliver his daughter to safety.
While the plot itself does not stray far from what we’ve seen before, it’s the execution that elevates this movie to one of my favorite theatrical experiences of the year. Heger is a revelation as Polly, turning in perhaps the best child performance of a year full of great young actors. And this is Egerton as you’ve never seen him, a completely raw force of nature. It’s as if you took Jason Statham and stripped him down to an authentic core.
It’s easy enough to write a script that says two characters are family, but it’s much harder to really sell that. Sometimes we just accept it because we’re told, and sometimes you can feel something through the screen that convinces you these two people are really family. Egerton and Heger deliver that latter experience that is so rare, with help from a script that makes their situation feel more gritty and natural than any action flick you’ll see this year.
Along the way, you learn that the leader of the gang is a man known as “The God of Slabtown” who you simply do not mess with, and has a web of corruption throughout the area. The character is more of a specter over the proceedings for much of the film, until we meet him as portrayed by John Carroll Lynch, who is always a delight when he pops up in a film and brings the heat here.
There’s also a refreshing subplot with a detective played by Rob Yang, who quickly begins to suspect the involvement of Aryan Steel rather than blindly leading a manhunt for Nate.
Although the final set piece of this film is a bit grandiose, this is not your typical action blockbuster that goes for a thin plot to justify big action. Everything here is grounded, from the action to the characters, all for the better.
