She Rides Shotgun, based on the novel by Jordan Harper, is a thriller that tells a sad, sweet and sometimes moving story about a father’s relationship with his young daughter. But bloody violence, profane language and a dim view of spirituality make this pic a ride families will want to avoid.
As the bell signals the end of another school day, 11-year-old Polly Huff is a little surprised that her mother isn’t waiting to pick her up at the curb.
It’s OK, she tells an inquiring teacher, sometimes her mom is just a little late.
So, she waits. And waits. And waits.
Suddenly, a car peels down the quiet street, the driver screeching to a stop upon seeing Polly. The man behind the wheel beckons her over.
Polly recognizes him. Nate McCluskey. Her father.
She’s surprised, to say the least. Nate hasn’t been part of her life for a long time. He and her mother split up many years ago. Another reason he hasn’t been around? Nate has been in prison.
But he’s out now, Nate tells her, and everything is fine. Never mind the fact that he seems on edge, or that he covers his face when a police cruiser drives by.
Polly knows things are not fine. But she has yet to find out just how bad they really are.
See, Nate got involved with some bad people in prison—a meth-peddling, white supremacist group called Blue Lightning. Nate killed one of their own to try to get out from under their thumb but, instead, caused that thumb to press down tighter on him and his family. Polly’s mother has already paid the ultimate price for Nate’s actions. And the gang and their mysterious leader, the so-called “God of Slabtown,” are far from satisfied. Nate and Polly are marked for death and forced to flee.
The father and daughter are almost strangers, but as they reconnect over their perilous journey, they just might find in each other something worth fighting for.
For all his faults and misdeeds, Nate truly cares for Polly. His driving motivation throughout She Rides Shotgun is to protect his daughter, and we see several instances where he puts himself in harm’s way to do so. Likewise, Polly loves her father. She is kind to him and even risks her life to help him.
Nate also tries to preserve Polly’s innocence, at least to the extent that he is able to do so. For example, after Polly fires a gun in a moment of desperation, Nate admonishes her. “I never want to see you pull a trigger again,” he tearfully says. “That’s what I’m for. … You’re a good thing.”
Nate regrets being absent for much of Polly’s life. He asks her questions about herself so he can get to know her better. He also encourages her to learn from his mistakes and to live a better life than he has.
A police detective, John Park, is determined to take down a drug ring. He later protects Polly when she comes into his care.
A foster family gives a new arrival a warm welcome. It appears Polly’s mother and stepfather were good to her. Someone says, “It hurts to lose people, [so] hold the ones you got tighter.”
As stated above, the enigmatic villain of She Rides Shotgun goes by the title “The God of Slabtown.” Several people believe him to be untouchable. Someone likens the man more to a devil than a god. The man himself seems to have bought into his own mythology.
At one point, someone tells Nate, “You can’t kill god.” Nate replies, “Yes, you can. You just gotta stop believing.”
Polly says that she once lied about being Jewish to get out of a Christmas project at school. As a result, her mother took her to a Jewish synagogue, but Polly found it to be “boring like normal church.” Polly says she decided then that she didn’t have any religious affiliation, a statement that seems to resonate with Nate.
After a shootout, Nate and Polly take refuge in a roadside trucker’s chapel. We see crosses and banners that depict the Holy Spirit as a dove alongside the elements of Communion. When Nate is teaching Polly self-defense, he tells her, “If [someone] hurt[s] people, cracking their heads ain’t a sin.”
While Nate and Polly are on the run, they spend a night with Charlotte, whom it’s implied once was in a romantic relationship with Nate. When Polly asks Charlotte how she met Nate, Charlotte replies that it’s “not a story for kids.”
Picking up on (at least some of) these implications, the young girl later asks her father about it. “I thought you only loved Mom,” she says. Nate answers that he did but that it had been “a long time since she loved me back.”
Nate tells his daughter that he doesn’t think he deserves love.
A woman wears a revealing top. Nate is often seen without his shirt, draped in a towel or wearing underwear. Someone makes a suggestive comparison about a police officer’s relentless pursuit of justice. Another person talks about a dog’s sexual instinct.
The bursts of action in She Rides Shotgun are bloody and intense. Several people are shot, with each wound accompanied by a spray of blood. Others are stabbed and badly beaten. In one particularly graphic scene, a man slices open his victim’s belly—and we get a brief glimpse of the gory result.
When Nate first comes to collect his daughter, the scene is plenty tense, played as though Nate might be trying to abduct Polly. Later, a newscast reveals that Polly’s mother was killed in a double homicide and that Nate is the suspected killer. (He isn’t.)
In need of money, Nate robs a gas station; he points a gun at the cashier and makes threats. A customer arrives at the station shortly after and starts a shootout with Nate, firing at him when he drives away—unknowingly putting Polly, who is in the passenger seat, in danger. Another person knowingly shoots at Polly, trying to kill her.
A man’s face is burned with hot coals. We witness a high-speed chase involving some dangerous driving and crashing cars. We also see a bullet wound in a man’s leg. A bathroom is left bloody from someone’s injury. A child is taken hostage.
Police detectives look at bloody pictures of a man Nate murdered. People threaten to kill each other. A vicious dog menaces someone.
F-words fly as freely as the frequent blood spatter in this film: That profanity is used more than 50 times—once by Polly. Nate writes a phrase containing the f-word and shows it to his young daughter. There are more than 20 uses of the s-word as well. God’s name is misused several times, paired frequently with “d—.” Jesus’ name is abused once.
Additionally, we hear uses of “h—,” “a–” and “a–hole,” “son of a b—h” and “b–tard.” The term “skinhead” is used, and an Asian character is referred to as “oriental.”
Slabtown is a hidden drug production facility. John describes it as “the meth lab to end all meth labs.” A cartel member is a drug mule who smuggles heroin packets in his digestive system to avoid detection. Someone references a “cook”—in this case, someone who creates methamphetamines. A few characters drink beer.
John exploits Nate and Polly’s situation to try to take down Slabtown. Nate steals a few cars throughout the film. Several police officers are connected to the white supremacist gang. A man is made to vomit.
She Rides Shotgun, based on the 2017 Jordan Harper novel of the same name, is a violent and frequently profane road trip across the American Southwest. But to the film’s credit, it’s much more than a disposable action thriller.
There is a beating heart here, found in the story of a father and daughter reconnecting amid their dire straits. The relationship shared between Nate and Polly (played by Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger, respectively) is sad, sweet and, at times, moving.
It’s an effective portrait of a familial relationship that’s equal parts messy and beautiful. A father is willing to give everything to protect his daughter’s life and her innocence. A daughter comes to love her father despite his failings and brokenness.
But just as Nate wouldn’t have wanted his young daughter to experience what she did—the brutality, blood and darkness—so, too, will families obviously want their youngsters to steer clear of this flick.
There’s a lot of grit in She Rides Shotgun, even for adults. A whirlwind of graphic violence, harsh language and spiritual distaste surround the more touching elements of this father-daughter drama.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
