This is so closely related to the Stephen Lara case in Nevada back in 2021. He was a retired Marine, heading to California to start a new life with his daughters. They left him with nothing on the side of the road. No charges, no arrests. Only a "justifiable" reason to seize his money. So much so, there's exact dialogue in the movie that matches the police body cam footage, such as having receipts for bank transactions, saying it's not illegal to carry cash, how the money was going to be distributed, if he doesn't file a suit he might get his money back, etc. The real victim was robbed of $86k cash by Nevada Highway Patrol. Look it up on YouTube. There's a complete documentary on it.

The trailer for this makes the film seem like it's going to be an all out action film from start to finish. Instead what you get is a thriller with a little bit of action thrown in. What starts with a man trying to post bail for his cousin, turns into a discovery of corruption in a small town. At no point did it seem like a two hour film, which is testament to how well the pace was kept, slowly revealing more and more details of what's been going on in the town. It would have also been very easy for the writers to just say the lead was ex-special forces, delta force etc. But they change this up from the norm to make it feel slightly different.

Is this something we've never seen before? No. Are there better action/thrillers out there? Yes. But that doesn't mean it's not worth spending two hours of your time watching it. A solid film.

The whole movie I'm grinding my teeth waiting for the big payback. Justice is served and the bad guys get beat up and end up in jail. It seemed like they ran out of film and everyone just has to imagine what happened to the bad guys.

The Rambo and Reacher type plot lines were really fun, and I love how capable and smart the good guys were.

The point where I realized they'd actually done some research was when the policeman was standing with his thumbs hooked into his bulletproof vest. That's a way for the policeman to have their hands up and in ready position without looking aggressive.

From a self-defence point of view he's pretty amazing and shows remarkable restraint. But with that restraint, I was really really looking for the payoff of the bad guys getting their butts kicked and ending up in jail, but that never happened.