George and Josh Bate
Some movies don’t just invite the audience to watch. They dare you to come along for the ride. That’s the case with She Rides Shotgun, which isn’t a road trip story as its advertising and marketing would suggest. Rather, it’s an emotional crash-out of a story, presented in slow-burn fashion—filled with broken people, bruised love, and the emotional distance that can exist between a father and a young daughter. This isn’t the kind of film that holds your hand, for better and for worse. Instead, it throws the viewer into the passenger seat of a stolen car right alongside these characters–seeing close up a girl too young to fully understand the perilous situation she’s in.
Directed by Nick Rowland and based on Jordan Harper’s novel of the same name, She Rides Shotgun follows a recently paroled convict named Nate Freeman (Taron Egerton). Upon release, Nate quickly realizes that a hit has been placed on him and, even more worryingly, his estranged 10-year-old daughter, Polly (played by breakout talent Anna Sophia Heger). Without a clear plan (and certainly no warning), Nate picks her up from school and sets off on a tense yet tender adventure to outrun those that are intent on doing them harm and the ghost of the man Nate used to be.
Like its source material, She Rides Shotgun is rooted deeply in a seedy criminal underworld. The film adaptation maintains the noir-esque style of the novel, but abandons the novel’s more heightened tone and initial exposition. The audience hears about an incident that happened in prison shortly before Nate was released and how that is the cause of the manhunt that ensues, but there aren’t many other details besides that as to why Nate is in this predicament. Rowland’s film strips much of that backstory away, choosing to start with Nate picking his daughter up from school (whereas the novel began with him still in prison). This is a choice that cuts both ways.
She Rides Shotgun respects its audience, trusting us to be able to follow along and fill in the blanks, and with an innate desire for the viewer to understand, above all else, the emotional trauma simmering beneath Nate’s quiet stares and Polly’s sudden survivalist maturity. It makes for a tighter, more cinematic experience, one that flows well with lots of momentum and inevitable tension. However, Nate’s prison life, Polly’s inner transformation, and the full scope of the danger they face all take time to come to fruition in this film as a result of these edits from the original story. The first twenty minutes or so are less a setup for what’s to come and more a jigsaw puzzle that the audience is putting together in real time, catching up on the lives of these characters as they’re already zipping away in their stolen car. That can be exhilarating, or alienating, depending on how much the audience is willing to invest in the story and lean in to the experiences of these characters.
Taron Egerton serves as a producer as well as star, and his identity is all over the emotional heart of the film. He portrays Nate as a quiet, somewhat mysterious lead character- someone who is simultaneously morally compromised due to his past yet still aiming, albeit recklessly, to turn things around. His motivation to do that isn’t just to better his own life (that appears to be an afterthought more than anything). Nate is, instead, focused on doing right by his daughter, someone who he later admits he barely knows. But despite the disconnect, it’s that blood bond that drives Nate, and Egerton captures all of that exquisitely. It’s a far cry from some of his early work. Since his turn in the Elton John biopic Rocketman, Taron Egerton has quietly gone about his business as a explorative performer unafraid to get messy and vulnerable with his characters. Here, he depicts a man barely holding it together with duct tape and guilt. His presence elevates the film, grounding even its more unbelievable moments in something resembling truth.
That said, the truth becomes more and more muddled as the film goes on. As She Rides Shotgun hits its climax, logic starts to become an afterthought, with the writers intent on pushing forward a narrative even if it doesn’t make much sense. Characters, particularly John Park (played by Rob Yang), do certain things as if they’ve been forced to making a decision in order to hold up the story choices to come. It’s clear that the filmmakers know where they want the story to go, but struggle to get there in a natural or organic manner. Some twists that occur later on make the film lose further credibility in that regard, and while they don’t completely ruin the proceedings, they dilute some of the emotional core of the story.
Even when the narrative clashes with logic and the characters within the story, the relationship at the heart of the film remains strong. She Rides Shotgun is a film that will linger in the minds of some, but not for the climactic shootout or traitorous reveals. It’s the way in which Polly begins to exhibit her father’s roughness and harshness, and his reaction every time he witnesses it. It’s in the silence between scenes, such as a particular powerful sequence in a trucker chapel, when nothing plot wise is occurring, that the film triumphs. Nate is there with his daughter, but he isn’t really there for her, and those are two very different things. It’s a surprisingly deep introspection into the inner workings of a strained dynamic between father and daughter, especially given how relatively standard the rest of the film is.
Another major change from the book is the setting, which was shifted from Los Angeles to New Mexico. This proves to be a good decision, as the latter feels a more unique and barren location for the story to take place in. The visuals that come from the film’s dusty, sun-bleached grime are great, too. The cinematography by Wyatt Garfield makes the desert feel haunted, not only by the danger posed by those who are hunting for the lead characters, but also the regrets of Nate. The parking lot of the motel, the roadside diner, and a semi-abandoned trailer park all echo the journey that the audience are being taken on in some way.
Ultimately, She Rides Shotgun is a film about people on the run, but not from the law. They’re fleeing their past, the poor choices they’ve made, and they’re running towards a brighter future, if not for themselves, then for a loved one. This is not a particularly unique message, nor a particularly original film overall, and yet the parental relationship at its core (and the superb performances from Egerton and Heger as father-daughter respectively) elevate a routine crime thriller to surprisingly touching heights.
