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It’s been a minute since a movie has enthralled me, swept me up in its story, dazzled me, and left me a sobbing mess at the end. Director Nick Rowland’s adaptation of the Jordan Harper noir novel She Rides Shotgun did just that. Inspired by the likes of No Country for Old Men and The Night of the Hunter (Harper calls its “Paper Moon with a body count”), Rowland’s drama is a percussive, heartrending story of fathers and daughters packed to bursting with beautiful dialogue, stark cinematography, and a career best performance by Taron Egerton alongside a stellar debut by Ana Sophia Heger.

Little Polly McClusky (Heger) waits for her mother to pick her up after school. After hours of waiting a car arrives bringing her father, Nathan (Egerton) back into her life. Recently released from prison, Nathan knows time is of the essence. He’s got a “green light” on him, a kill order, given to him by the leader of a neo-Nazi group he was forced to be a part of. With Polly’s life in danger, Nathan is forced to take his daughter he barely knows on the run.

There’s an old-fashioned sensibility that permeates She Rides Shotgun, no doubt the result of the translation away from Los Angeles, where Harper’s book is set, to the American Southwest. Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield’s camera combines the awe-inspiring beauty of the mountainous desert landscape against the equally isolated locations Polly and Nathan go into. Even when the pair are at a bustling airport parking lot they’re the only living characters in the frame. Their world is cozy and intimate, but also lonely.

We meet Polly alone in front of the school as Nathan, whom the audience doesn’t know yet, beckons her to his car. In any other movie, the audience understands what horrors await the young girl until she discovers it’s her father, a man she only fleetingly remembers. (Nate attempts to recount moments of bonding with his daughter only to meet a quizzical gaze from her in return.) The script gives only snatches of the pair’s respective pasts—Nate is ashamed of his and Polly has barely lived long enough to have one. It’s clear Nathan is a follower, sheepishly following his big brother his whole life who, now dead, has left his little brother nothing but a life of crime and a cadre of villains, both law enforcement and otherwise, wanting to kill everyone he holds dear.

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Taron Egerton should be an Oscar winner (Rocketman forever), and he continues to show why he’s one of the most dynamic actors working today. When the viewer meets him, he’s a raw nerve, on the edge of threatening. It’s not just in his physical appearance, the remnants of his life in a neo-Nazi gang, but in the way he constantly scans the room, his tongue lingering at the corner of his mouth. He pushes Polly along, so frustrated that he refuses to let her pick an item out of the vending machine. Her hunger, whether it be for food or comfort, is little more than a hindrance to his freedom. And yet, as the narrative goes on, that transition to compassion for his child grows organically in the way Edgerton looks at Heger. A convenience store robbery is tense and chaotic, yet Nathan still remembers to get the Snickers bar Polly asked for.

Egerton is the established force that moves things along but it is young Heger who shines across the screen like a shooting star. The Paper Moon comparisons are apt as Heger gives off a Tatum O’Neal vibe, though where O’Neal’s Addie Pray is hardened at the beginning, Heger is the opposite. She’s a child, through and through, and it is through her connection to Nathan’s violent world she is forced not to just toughen up, but to grow up. Heger threads the needle between a child and a child performing the moves of adulthood. The moment she discovers what’s happened to her mother leaves Heger to give an emotionally nuanced moment of simultaneously grieving for her mom and understanding she must bond with Nathan or have absolutely no one. When Nathan gets shot and Polly has to stitch him up, it’s a moment for her to realize that adults aren’t gods.

The Coen brothers influence is felt immediately in how quickly potential enemies can become allies, and vice versa. Following alongside Nathan and Polly is Detective John Park (Rob Yang). What’s fascinating is that, in the landscape where there are villains and heroes, we also get shades of gray and that is best embodied in Park who wants to do the right thing, and also get some glory if he can.

The script is at its shakiest when its at its most profound. Polly’s opening narration talks about a man who thinks he’s a god. Throughout the feature much is made about a place called Slabtown, the largest meth operation in the Southwest, and how its owner—referred to as the God of Slabtown—has eyes and ears everywhere. The goal is to set him up as the scariest person in the world and while the casting is on the nose, the hype doesn’t truly match up. With the focus on Nathan and Polly there’s a lot of mumbled backstory meant to elevate Slabtown as this Hadestown-esque existence. But it isn’t until the third act that we get our first glimpse of the God of Slabtown and, even then, the script struggles to make it compelling after spending nearly half the runtime with Polly and Nathan.

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Regardless, once the pair make it to Slabtown the Western fans hit home, with gunfights and Garfield’s camera showing the sheer immensity of the God’s army. It’s easy to see the writing on the wall where the story will end but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. But it is the movie’s final scene, as Polly dances to “Clearest Blue” by Chvrches—which will make its way onto my favorite needle drops of 2025 list—that the movie’s utter brilliance comes through. The camera, focused on Heger attempting to dance while simultaneously holding back a tidal wave of emotions, finally able to breathe….it’s one I cannot stop thinking about.

She Rides Shotgun is a film that could just come and go, and that’s unfortunate. It’s one of the year’s best movies! Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger are pitch perfect. This is one where I want to include all the adjectives to discuss how much I love it.

Grade: A-

She Rides Shotgun is in theaters Thursday.

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