In Jeremy Saulnier’s fifth feature, “Rebel Ridge,” a Rambo-inspired riff on racial profiling and the insidious banality of evil baked into American policing, the filmmaker demonstrates his incredible mastery of the action thriller. His skill with this subgenre has been on display since “Blue Ruin” (2013), and throughout his oeuvre, from “Green Room” (2016) to “Hold the Dark” (2018). But in “Rebel Ridge,” Saulnier’s examination of space and pace transcends anything that has come before, as he coolly alternates extreme control with bursts of explosive fury over a few hours.

It’s in this unique cadence that Saulnier’s MO snaps into focus: his formal cinematic expression as a reflection of his protagonist’s state of mind. In “Rebel Ridge” — which Saulnier wrote, directed and edited — the story, and subsequent film style, zeroes in on Terry (Aaron Pierre), a man caught in a quotidian nightmare that spins out of control when he is pushed to his limit. Terry maintains his cool until he doesn’t.

Pierre is terrific as a man with a particular skill set thrumming below his composed surface. With his golden eyes, velvet voice and smooth gait, Pierre is like a wildcat prowling across the screen, but Terry’s temperament is more like a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike when threatened.

For the plot engine of “Rebel Ridge,” Saulnier takes on a common but often nasty practice in law enforcement: civil asset forfeiture. In the opening sequence, Terry is cycling through the small Southern town of Shelby Springs when a police officer (David Denman) attempts to pull him over, hits Terry with his squad car, detains him and seizes the stack of cash he has in his backpack “under suspicion” that it’s drug money.

Terry was carrying the cash to bail out his cousin Mike (C.J. LeBlanc) from jail, hoping to spring him before a transfer to the state penitentiary, where he’d be in dire danger as a former witness in a murder trial. But Terry’s money disappears into a property locker, where it will remain until he can contest the seizure in court, months later. A spunky young legal aide, Summer (AnnaSophia Robb), informs him that the police department makes a habit of this to fund their budget (and margarita machines), after a civil suit resulted in a perfunctory “cleanup” job of their corrupt practices.

By simply existing, and refusing to accept that the police department has stolen his money (and in doing so, endangering his family), Terry has kicked a carefully calibrated hornet’s nest, riling up a swarm of good ol’ boy cops who answer to Chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson). But what these cops don’t realize is that Terry is also someone they don’t want to mess with, as they discover that he’s not just a retired Marine; he’s a Marine Corps Martial Arts Program instructor.

There’s a lot of talk of police procedure in the lead-up to the action of “Rebel Ridge,” although Saulnier seeds bursts of violence throughout, as Terry seizes control of the situation, and Saulnier aligns us with his subjective experience.

It is that discussion of mundane legal details — and how the police manipulate policy to their benefit — that is the point of Saulnier’s film, not just the breathtaking action. Terry has found himself descending into a hellish odyssey of bureaucracy, paperwork and a “justice” system that relies too heavily on the discretion of small-town cops and judges who all too easily make decisions that value budgets over human lives: Black lives, female lives, lives with substance abuse issues.

No MPA rating (consider it rated R for violence, drug references and language)

Running time: 2:10

How to watch: Netflix