Release: Ruby Ridge

 

Ruby Ridge

Genre: Drama/Biography/Suspense

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Writers: Lon Charles & Dwight Gallo

Cast: Eric Bana, Hilary Swank, Julia Butters, Walker Scobell, Gabriella Sengos, Matt Jones, Marc Menchaca, Don Johnson, Jeremy Davies, Ki Hong Lee, Kevin Nash, Leon Rippy, Michael Mosley, Joel McHale

Budget: $26,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $29,481,504

Foreign Box Office: $15,590,420

Total Profit: -$4,100,105

Reaction: The odds of this one being a major blockbuster were slim-to-none given its controversial subject matter. We at the studio are happy that it didn't lose very much money.

"Bigelow, Charles and Gallo have created a restrained, deeply human drama that captures the slow spiral of distrust and tragedy. Eric Bana and Hilary Swank deliver quietly powerful performances as Randy and Vicki Weaver, a couple whose off-grid ideals collide with the full force of federal overreach. Bigelow builds suspense not through action but through silence, missteps, and mounting fear. The film avoids easy answers, part survival story, part procedural, and ultimately a sobering reflection on what happens when communication fails and ideology hardens." - Freddie Poulter, TheWrap.com

"Kathryn Bigelow’s Ruby Ridge is a blisteringly controlled descent into the paranoia, idealism, and bureaucratic rot that defined one of the most haunting government standoffs in American history. Anchored by a career-best performance from Eric Bana and a quiet, steely turn from Hilary Swank, the film refuses to reduce its subjects to martyrs or monsters. Instead, it operates in the grey zones — of law, of faith, of survival. Lon Charles and Dwight Gallo’s script successfully walks a harrowing tightrope between fact and dramatization to create a truly memorable film." - Elliot DeForge, Pale Horse Review

“High drama at its finest. It should come as no surprise that something as good as this comes from a collaboration between these two writers, especially with a director in Bigelow whose tactile approach to telling true stories makes for a perfect fit. Ruby Ridge is a phrase occasionally mentioned in American culture but rarely discussed in the shadow of events like Jonestown and Waco, and so I appreciated how this film takes its time to sketch out all of the key players and give the true story some real space to breathe. While Bana and Swank excel as regular folk caught in the middle of a complex morally grey battleground between the federal government and white supremacists, the whole cast top-to-bottom is wonderful (including the scene-stealing arrival of Don Johnson late in the film).” - Gregory Fletcher, Los Angeles Times-Journal

Rated R for language, violence, and thematic material