The Ranger: Authority and Anarchy
Jenn Wexler’s feature directorial debut, The Ranger, is less interesting in its modest shake-up of bloody genre tropes than in its shakedown of the ideological contradictions of authority and anarchy. The ostensible “heroes” of the piece are teenage punks, full of anti-establishment vitriol wrapped up in a guise of combat boots, hair dye, and safety pins. The titular character (played by the imposing Jeremy Holm), mocked as “Smokey the Bear,” is all about rules and respectfor the property he’s overseen for many years.
The characters first encounter each other outside a convenience store, where pink-haired Chelsea (Chloë Levine) attempts to mediate an altercation between the Ranger and her boyfriend, Garth (Granit Lahu). The Ranger, able to cite regulations at a moment’s notice, is a vision of darkly comedic absurdity that’s a corollary to the punks’ trying-so-hard appearances. The punks’ rebellion against law and order meets its match in the Ranger’s strict, square-jawed adherence to it.
As the film progresses, said adherence becomes a type of madness and anarchism unto itself. In many ways, the Ranger – living in literal isolation (an inverted echo of the punks’ cultural alienation) – is able to enact a sort of paradoxical, bound-by-law lawlessness that the punks, when faced with the extent of his carnage, cannot begin to fathom.
The Thrill of Futile Rebellion
Chelsea is haunted by flashbacks of a hunting trip with her Uncle Pete (Glass Eye Pix honcho Larry Fessenden). In brief snippets that portend a greater, more complicated picture, we see a youthful fall from grace, which leads to her initial run-in with the Ranger. The suggestion that Chelsea, through this experience, harbors a survival instinct of her own, is returned to time and again.
The Ranger begins with a sequence in a punk club, where Garth, Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez, looking like Knives Chau cosplay), Jerk (Jeremy Pope), and Abe (Bubba Weiler) find themselves on the run when the cops raid the venue. In an adrenalin-fueled moment, Garth saves Chelsea in a back alley by stabbing a cop, thus leading the Scooby Gang – complete with their spray-painted Misery Machine – on a mission to evade capture, which leads them to the boarded-up mountain cabin where Chelsea spent summers with her uncle.
Recalling Cabin Fever, Wexler (and co-writer Giaco Furino) presents the characters as obnoxious, but avoids the lunkhead sexism of Eli Roth’s film. And as Lisa Simpson said to Bart (in an episode where he sets aside his mischievous ways to become school hall monitor), “surely you remember the thrill of futile rebellion.” That is what the punks enact: disrespecting the park in lame ways (tagging trees; littering; blasting music) as a bold underline of their malnourished philosophy.
For a while, the characters – outside of Chelsea and the Ranger – engender no sympathy. But a jarring midpoint turn that transforms their laissez-faire getaway into a survival situation shows a rapid dissolution of their “fuck you” facades. When brought to a precipice, these characters share concern for one another, and are allowed their moments of humanity. Wexler and Furino build the punks up enough – while establishing the double-edged desperation of their situation (being caught by the cops; being killed by the Ranger) – to allow their fates to resonate with just enough impact.
Facing the Worst
While The Ranger’s ending is more or less definitive, there remains potential for a sequel (aspects of the relationship between Chelsea, the Ranger, and Uncle Pete seem deliberately absent here). This type of survival story – going back to Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” – can always find new life depending on the handling. Wexler’s film is compelling in its depiction of Chelsea overcoming her past and the creation of a unique villain. The plot throws enough curveballs to keep the action fairly unpredictable (even if it borrows a plot point from M. Night Shyamalan’s Split), and the suspense and shocks are solid. The Ranger would make for a fine double feature with Mickey Keating’s Carnage Park.
But what’s perhaps most satisfying is its sneaky coming-of-age tale wrapped in wolfish horror clothes – the acknowledgment that futile rebellion alone is insufficient ammunition against not only your past, but the fucked-up notions of law and order that allow grownups to participate in their own contradictory form of government-sanctioned, ideologically assured anarchy. Not unlike Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, desperate situations require you to face the absolute worst – and confronting that which you cannot imagine yourself doing – to emerge out the other end with all your limbs intact.
3.5 out of 5 stars
The Ranger is currently streaming via Shudder. It is also available on Blu-ray and DVD.
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Crash Analysis Support Team
Jonny Numb
Jonny Numb (aka Jonathan Weidler), despite aspirations to the contrary, kills nothing but time on Twitter and Letterboxd @JonnyNumb. He also co-hosts THE LAST KNOCK podcast with Billy Crash.
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(The Ranger image from Dread Central.)