She Rides Shotgun, 2025.
Directed by Nick Rowland.
Starring Taron Egerton, Ana Sophia Heger, Odessa A’zion, John Carroll Lynch, David Lyons, Rob Yang, and Keith Jardine.
SYNOPSIS:
A girl marked for death, must fight and steal to stay alive, learning from the most frightening man she knows-her father. An adaptation of Jordan Harper’s award-winning novel.
For a rather simplistic premise, there is much more going on underneath the surface of director Nick Rowland’s She Rides Shotgun. Working from a script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (based on the novel from Jordan Harper), Rowland takes the standard premise of an ex-con father on the run protecting his child and injects it with beautifully nuanced characterization and a whirlwind of emotional intensity, electrically captured by star Taron Egerton (a staple of the action genre, but taking on a new challenge here in one more grounded and dramatically raw) and astonishing newcomer Ana Sophia Heger as a young daughter torn between loving and fearing her estranged father.
Having not seen her father, Nate, in years, something is amiss when Polly’s mother is tardy (and presumably uncharacteristically so) to pick her up from school. Instead, it is Nate who comes driving back into her life, urging her to get inside a stolen vehicle and stressing that they need to move, hiding the fact that her mother and stepfather have been murdered. There is also a quiet sense of understandable shame when she questions why the car window is broken, prompting him to tell a white lie. This is a man who has likely served time in prison for justifiable reasons, but is also filled with regret and, perhaps more than anything, hates that he must resort to shady behavior again to protect Polly from an Aryan gang with a hit out on his entire family for murdering the leader of that white supremacist group. So, not all of his violent crimes are indefensible, although it is made clear he followed his older brother into such a troubled life without ever stopping for a moment and taking a step back to set a more honorable and fulfilling future course.
Nate’s plan for sanctuary is to travel across New Mexico and cross the border, reconnecting with an ex-girlfriend (Odessa A’zion) along the way, which opens another side of his regret in that he doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved. That’s also something Polly intends to change, even if she is visibly alarmed upon witnessing his violent rage for the first time in their self-defense. Nick Rowland is also wise enough to frame these tussles and shootouts from Polly’s perspective, understanding that the modus operandi shouldn’t solely be crafting thrilling action, but also deeply rooting it in characterization and story.
Sometimes, Polly’s horror gives way to unsettling, precocious curiosity, such as when Nate is backed into a financial corner and must rob a gas station to fund their journey. An armed civilian attempts to break that robbery up, only for her to get involved and somewhat become an accomplice. However, for as morally thorny as the proceedings are, Nate never loses sight of the fact that the one thing he must do, alongside keeping Polly alive, is ensuring that she doesn’t follow in his footsteps, at times endangering himself to make sure she looks away from the violence.
Nosy detective John Park (Rob Yang) is on the investigation, hoping to use Nate as a means to an end to bring down a drug ring and its anonymous leader known as the God of Slabtown, who may or may not be connected to the Aryan gang. The identity of that drug lord isn’t necessarily surprising, and such a subplot makes for the weakest and most generic material here, although it must be said that John Carroll Lynch is disturbingly ruthless in a role going against type. Unsurprisingly, everyone’s paths cross, with Nate still only looking out for the safety of his daughter.
It’s also unlikely to stun viewers that She Rides Shotgun builds to a storm of violence, but again, Nick Rowland never once forgets that this is a story about an estranged father bonding with his daughter, lamenting what he has missed out on in her whole life. Taron Egerton appears more jacked than ever before, yet also more vulnerable than ever. Meanwhile, Ana Sophia Heger isn’t playing a cutesy kid that causes problems to push the plot and action along conveniently, but a real character with depth; the film doesn’t work if she isn’t successful at matching his emotional presence, and she does.
She Rides Shotgun is a scintillating thriller about ensuring the sins of the father aren’t passed down, even when those same sins might be the only way to forge a path for something more hopeful. Sure, that might sound familiar, but the craftsmanship, characterization, action, and performances here are first-rate and riveting.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
