"She Rides Shotgun" — A Gritty, Heartbreaking Father-Daughter Thriller

It almost feels unfair that She Rides the Shotgun, Nick Rowland’s wiry, nerve-jangling new thriller, has been dropped with such little marketing fanfare. Lionsgate hasn’t given the film the push it deserves, but make no mistake: this is one of those rare movies that sneaks up on you, grabs your throat, and doesn’t let go until you’ve laughed, cried, and gasped your way through its haunting finale.

Based on Jordan Harper’s award-winning novel (with the author himself co-writing the script alongside Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski), the film follows Nate McClusky (Taron Egerton), a hardened ex-con just out of prison, whose survival instincts collide head-on with his responsibility as a father. Almost immediately after release, Nate scoops up his estranged 11-year-old daughter Polly (Ana Sophia Heger, a revelation) from school. This isn’t a tearful reunion; the car window is shattered, Nate is buzzing with tension, and Polly barely remembers this anxious man now pulling her into his storm. What she doesn’t know yet is that her mother has just been murdered — and that both of them are next on a hit list from a white supremacist gang Nate crossed behind bars.

From the first getaway drive, Rowland frames father and daughter in isolation — often each in their own shot, as if they were ghosts orbiting one another. It’s a stylistic choice that mirrors their fractured relationship but also keeps us off balance. Can they learn to trust each other before the world closes in

The plot unfurls like a powder keg: cops who know Nate didn’t kill Polly’s mother still pursue him, a brutal Aryan gang (the terrifying Slabtown) has infiltrated every institution from police squads to roadside motels, and the duo find themselves in a cycle of flight, violence, and fleeting refuge. Nate teaches
Polly survival the only way he knows how: dyeing her hair neon orange to avoid recognition, instructing her how to swing a baseball bat not for sport but to shatter knees and skulls, and forcing her to watch the ugly realities of his world. She’s shoved under car seats during shootouts, helps stitch his wounds, and endures a harrowing car chase that plays like a nightmare version of Breaking Bad.

And yet — amid the brutality, a fragile intimacy emerges. Rowland gradually shifts his visual language until, for the first time, father and daughter share the same frame, their bodies no longer distant shadows but reluctant kin forced into unity. The result is devastating: we witness a bond being born in real time, but we also feel the ticking clock of how fragile and fleeting it might be.
Egerton has never been this raw. It’s almost surreal to recall that just a few years ago he was embodying Elton John with glitter and bravado in Rocketman. Here, his Nate is jagged, haunted, and ferocious, channeling an energy that feels closer to Bryan Cranston’s Walter White but stripped of vanity.

Ana Sophia Heger, meanwhile, is the film’s knockout revelation. With the slightest tilt of her brows she conveys fear, suspicion, or steely determination, and she holds her own against Egerton in every scene. Watching Polly evolve from a terrified child into a wary, battle-hardened accomplice is both thrilling and utterly heartbreaking.

Rowland surrounds them with a sharp ensemble: Aubrey Plaza delivers bite as a stoic cop who piques Honey’s [typo from another review—maybe keep consistent?]. Correction: as Nate’s wary foil. Rob Yang underplays beautifully as Detective Park, the rare “good cop” who still puts Nate in danger. John Carroll Lynch chews through the screen as the chilling “God of Slabtown,” a villain whose sadism lingers long after he exits.

Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield matches the emotional stakes with scorching New Mexico landscapes — endless horizons that feel less like freedom and more like traps. His tracking shots during shootouts, particularly one with Polly running in the foreground as gunfire erupts behind her, leave you breathless.

But what makes She Rides the Shotgun extraordinary isn’t just the grit of its action — it’s the bruised tenderness underneath. Between robberies, betrayals, and bloody ambushes, there are small, unforgettable beats: a father buying his daughter a candy bar mid-heist, a shared laugh amid exhaustion, a whispered “buckle up” that doubles as both survival instinct and paternal care. These moments hurt precisely because they shimmer against so much darkness.
Yes, the story leans on crime-drama tropes — the corrupt sheriff, the ex who can’t be trusted, the unstoppable gang. And yes, the final act asks for a bit of suspension of disbelief. But those quibbles melt away when weighed against the film’s pulse: the fierce, fragile love between a father who knows he’s poisoned everything he touches and a daughter discovering both her strength and her scars.

In the end, She Rides the Shotgun is not just a crime thriller — it’s a gut-punch about family, survival, and the terrible cost of love in a violent world. Egerton cements himself as one of the most versatile actors of his generation, and Heger is nothing short of a star-in-the-making. Together, they make this film unforgettable.

Hollywood may not be marketing it like a blockbuster, but trust me: She Rides the Shotgun is a ride you won’t shake off anytime soon.