“She Rides Shotgun” Traumatizes

She Rides Shotgun (Nick Rowland, 2025) 1½ out of 5 stars

If you enjoy seeing kids suffer enormous trauma, have I got a film for you. Director Nick Rowland’s She Rides Shotgun—an adaptation of Jordan Harper’s eponymous 2017 novel—takes its 10-year-old protagonist, Polly, and puts her through enormous hell, over and over. If one is going to craft such a story, at least make it worth our narrative while. Here, the cruelty appears to be the point of the exercise. No thank you.

At least the performances are (mostly) strong. Young Ana Sophie Heger (who physically resembles the Farmiga clan) is excellent in the lead, expressing emotion through her (often frightened) eyes rather than through excess externalization. As Nathan, her ex-con father, Taron Egerton (Rocketman) proves engaging. Neither actor is given enough to do to justify the trajectory of the screenplay, however.

That script, by Harper as well as Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (The Night House), mixes violence with clumsy attempts at father-daughter bonding (complete with unearned sentiment). There’s nothing like seeing blood spurt after hearing words of love. Too bad the contrast highlights neither experience.

Right from the start, the movie traffics in dread. In an opening convoluted and portentous voiceover (a cinematic technique that vanishes post-intro), Polly tells us about a “bad man” who wreaks havoc among his enemies. When we then cut to what looks like a nice, suburban school and see a girl (Polly) waiting outside for a tardy parent to pick her up, we already know that horrors are afoot.

Sure enough, Nathan screeches around the corner in a stolen car and coaxes the unwilling Polly to come along. He has apparently just gotten out of prison. Where’s Mom? And why is Nathan wearing Polly’s stepdad’s jacket? Expect the worst.

From there, we careen through a series of bad decisions (by characters and writers) that only make Polly’s nightmare ever more extreme. Even though she is wary of Nathan at first, Polly soon warms to him, despite his penchant for questionable deeds. He’s the only parent around, after all.

Rob Yang (The Menu) features as the detective in hot pursuit, with John Carroll Lynch (The Highwaymen) as the villain. I like Lynch, but his obvious joy in playing such a nasty part does not translate into compelling drama. He’s just unpleasant, as is the rest of the film.

There are occasional thrills that work, but most of She Rides Shotgun has us wishing she wouldn’t. An incomprehensibly tone-deaf final scene only adds to the mess. My recommendation is to take a drive someplace else.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.