The dialogue has a metallic tang and the smell of a just-fired revolver about it in “Rebel Ridge,” an “In the Heat of the Night” style tale of Southern justice in the golden age of “cash forfeiture.”

Lines like “Just because you was right that don’t make us wrong” leave a nasty aftertaste when delivered with a “Bama-ass” drawl.

The latest thriller fom writer-director Jeremy Saulnier is sharp, deliberate and lean, more “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room” than “Hold the Dark.” It takes its sweet, suspenseful time to get hold of us and give us a good shake.

“I wasn’t aware it was a pissin’ contest.” “It always is.”

By genre, this is another “You picked the wrong guy to mess around with” action pic, one smart enough to never have to use that cliched line. It’s “First Blood” and “Taken,” about a man with “particular skills” crossed by the wrong people — this time, small-town Southern law enforcement enjoying its decades of immunity from scrutiny, investigation and oversight.

Aaron Pierre (“Brother,” Malcolm X in TV’s “Genius”) plays Terry, a guy minding his own business, pedaling a bike through the Deep South (Louisiana, based on the use of the word “parish”) when he’s rammed by a small town cop who fails to take into account the cyclist is listening to music through his earbuds and can’t “stop” when ordered to, for no good reason.

Terry is harassed, threatened and cuffed. He is questioned and searched. “May I have your permission to look through your backpack?” “No, you may not.” He is misused and manhandled, but respectful and always in control of his emotions.

That cash? It’s to bail his cousin out of a “possession” arrest in Shelby Springs. He’s got to post it before that cousin is shipped off to the state pen for holding until trial. This is a matter of life and death.

Not that the cop (David Denham) and his backup (Emory Cohen) give two damns about that. This money is impounded, subject to forfeiture, all based on their “suspicion” and prejudice.

Terry may find a sympathetic ear in the courthouse, an assistant clerk and law student played by AnnaSophia Robb, in her best role since “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” “This can’t be legal” turns out to be legal. And in this corner of the BFE South, “this” is a whole system of arrests, charges and seizures that the police chief (Don Johnson) banks on and the judge (James Cromwell) signs off on.

Pushing back, trying to file a “robbery” report, only pisses off that chief, the one to whom everything is a “pissin’ contest.” Chasing down the bus prematurely transporting that cousin to prison doesn’t reassure the cousin, Terry or us that this is going to end well.

Because the cops may have all the cash and all the cards. But they’re going to find out they picked the wrong Black man to railroad and rob. All we have to do is wait for the shoe and the hammer to drop.

The genius of Saulnier and Pierre’s approach here it to keep that shoe from dropping, to play all this on simmer, to emphasize “less lethal” “special skills,” “de-escalation” and patience. Sooner or later, lines will be crossed and the ante will be upped in that “pissin’ contest.” Sooner or later, those small town police will figure out what all those Marine Corps acronyms attached to Terry Richmond’s name mean.

Pierre is stoic and stonefaced as Richmond, a man who may not remember “which amendment (to the Constitution)” guarantees “due process.” He is still someone of inner resources and inner reserve, willing to comply, to go along to get along, to make “a deal” because “a deal is a deal.” But corruption this ingrained, this officially sanctioned, makes “a deal” as worthless as the promise of a police chief.

Johnson never lets this “Chief Burnne” become a caricature. He is electric in the part, not inclined to lose his cool, willing to “mislead” rather than overplay or give away his hand, hellbent on having his way in all this. Because the police chief wants to be county sheriff,.

Saulnier’s film is at its best on familiar, factual ground. “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” was all over this “civil foreiture” sketchiness ten years ago. Some of the side issues — small town paranoia, job insecurity, all the people who have to look the other way for this corrupt cop hustle to operate — take on melodramatic touches.

But for all its flinty dialogue, there is no catch phrase, no glib “You picked the wrong” this, that or the other person “to mess around with.” Pierre makes us buy into the calculus Terry is working with, the training he’s absorbed. This is a potentially violent chess game, and Terry has to size-up his opponents, the cost-benefit and potential hazard of this move or that one. Pierre makes us reason this out with him.

I found the ending of “Rebel Ridge” a bit of a reach.

But Saulnier’s made a slow-burn thriller that surprises and keeps us guessing and waiting, mostly for that moment when somebody draws “First Blood,” and even then he trips up expectations, and deliciously so.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, profanity

Cast: Aaron Pierre, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Zsane Jhe, Steve Zissss and Don Johnson

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jeremy Saulnier. A Netflix release.

Running time: 2:11