Detroit (2017) Review!!!

Synopsis – Fact-based drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots in which a group of rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather than justice on their minds.

My Take – Some films are so harrowing and depressing, that it gets really hard to review them. Yes, this film is one of those that are not only hard to watch, but also manages to leave you in an upsetting stage once the end credits roll in. Covering the now very common topic of racial incidents, this film takes us back into the late 1960’s, when race relations in American were at the brink of an explosion as African-Americans were crippled by their poor living conditions in the cities and were being provided little help from the government. While white Americans were enjoying a better life in the suburbs, the cities continued to unofficially segregate blacks into the urban environments; this anger eventually erupted in a series of riots that provided fuel for the media on the troubling issues for African Americans. Though each city riot had their fair share of casualties and damage, the one in the city of Detroit was said to be the worst, and who better to cover such a moment than a director known for her documentary-style camera-work and creation of a perfectly intense atmosphere, Kathryn Bigelow. Here re-teaming with her The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty writer, Mark Boal, director Bigelow takes a harrowing look into the city’s class divide, not just by setting the film during the most terrifying civil unrest that rocked the iconic motor city in the summer of 1967, but by specially zooming in on the Algiers Motel incident which involved the death of three black men and the brutal beatings of nine other people including two white women. As expected, the film displays the raw realism with the actors looking very real and naked from their famous personas, along with a jam packed story. While I think the source material would have made a much better miniseries, director Bigelow makes it work by sacrificing some facts for the sake of entertainment. While personally I didn’t love it as much as the critics did, I sure was hooked by the raw and disturbing depiction of the disturbing true story that for one reason or another had been stuck as some kind of historical footnote for the past fifty years and keeping in mind the current political climate, it is timely as ever.

It all starts with a raid on a private party in an unlicensed club on July 23, 1967. The incident triggers the neighborhood mob to start peddling rocks at police cars, which would later escalate to looting and setting fire. In the following days, the story follows a few parallel lives, with all colliding at the Algiers Motel. With the National Guard and police at a severe state of tension, a suspected looter (Tyler James Williams) is shot in the back by a police officer named Krauss (Will Poulter) and later dies from his injuries. The fact that he shot an unarmed suspect in the back twice does not sit well with his superiors and Krauss is informed that they will form an investigation and they are suggesting that murder charges be filed against him. At the same time, security officer Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega) is called into work shortly after he returns home from his main job and is being tasked to protect a store and sets up shop with his partner in an area that is being occupied by the National Guard. The film then shifts to a group of R&B musicians, known as the Dramatics, who are about to have their big break by appearing onstage at a Motown showcase, but moments before taking the stage they are informed that the riot is encroaching upon the area and that they along with the mostly white audience need to evacuate. Disappointed at first, the group tries to leave the city, but due to the extreme rioting, the group gets separated, with the lead singer, Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and his friend Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) moving into to the Algiers Motel, hoping things will cool down the next day. Here they meet two white girls, Julie Ann (Hannah Murray) and Karen (Kaitlyn Dever), who introduce them to some of the residents at the hotel, which leads to some tension between them, however, when one of them, in order to gain attention from the ladies, pulls out a track pistol and fires it in the air, the nearby police led by officers Krauss, Flynn (Ben O’Toole) and Demens (Jack Reynor) mistaking it to be a sniper attack, quickly reach the hotel & begin gathering everyone to find the shooter. However, things get worse when the openly racist officers find the white girls hiding in the room of black Vietnam veteran Greene (Anthony Mackie). Even though Dismukes is there to help find the shooter, he watches as the brutal interrogation goes on, mainly as all he wants is to ensure that everyone leaves alive. What follows is a very dark and disturbing series of events where the suspects are physically and mentally assaulted and denied their basic civil rights. As tensions mount, mistakes happen and people end up dead. The film is interesting, and pretty intense, from pretty much the opening scene until the last. With a 140-plus minute running time and a gaggle of characters to keep track of, the story is just too big for a feature film and requires patience. Despite this, director Kathryn Bigelow does her best to tame Mark Boal‘s bloated script to a digestible film and the results are mostly good. Everything within the first charcoal-tinted twenty minutes brings sense into the city’s economic structure of the time. With each bike stolen, with each fire set ablaze, with each fireman injured by a thrown rock, with each Black woman sexually harassed by an officer, with each piece of real historical news footage, the attention closes in on the personal conflict within the riot rather than the spectacle itself.

Director Kathryn Bigelow understands that the riots themselves were anything but “thrilling spectacle” so it’s played sparse, gritty, and grounded. Thanks to director Bigelow‘s additional talent of pseudo-verities, each scene with the riots and the Motel incident feels and looks real and unflinching. The riots are wonderfully staged with masterful cinematography by Barry Ackroyd, that blends filmed footage with documentary footage, the same goes for the torture montage, as we witness every hit, every shot, every scream, and every shed of tear in each frame as if we are in the moment ourselves. The entire second act of this film, an hour long sequence inside the Algiers Motel, was one of the most intense, gut-wrenching, shocking, and haunting things I have ever seen. Director Bigelow does a wonderful job of creating a great deal of tension. She does so by cutting from one tightly framed slightly wobbly shot to the next. Each character’s face floods nearly the entire screen after each of these cuts. This makes the film deeply personal and almost claustrophobic at times. While I’m saying that the film is expertly directed, something that’s evident early on and remains that way throughout, the issue holding this film back from becoming one of serious best picture caliber is the writing. The brief on-screen text explanation of the tension between the Detroit Police and the city’s black residents could have served as a helpful addition to a setup that followed in the film. I would have had no problem with that. But after the film plays for 20 minutes or so, I realized that the text was the sole source of setup. Even though there isn’t much in the way of character development for this film, you really feel for the characters regardless. It is a terrible situation that these victims were put into, and it makes you disgusted as a human being to watch another human being do this to another human being, and it speaks volumes about the consequences of racism not only in past society, but in today’s society as well. This is serious film-making about an all-too-serious subject, and the director never shies away from the events, although she does take some creative leeway with the facts to dramatize her narrative. Unfortunately director Bigelow and her standard screenwriter Mark Boal rather over-egg the pudding in the final reels, making the film over-long and undoing some of the previous good work. The film sprawls into multiple different areas including courtroom scenes, mourning families (introducing brand new characters), a Larry Reed story and related Dramatics fall-out, with only the latter story-line being really welcome. The film’s cast is well rounded and there is definitely some excellent acting from everyone involved. While John Boyega is being marketed as the star of the film due to his Star Wars status, this is actually a film without a standard Hollywood- style star; nevertheless he gives a near flawless performance. Will Poulter, Ben O’Toole and Jack Reynor give performances unlike any other corrupt cops we’ve seen before. Poulter in particular, perfectly embodies what a person would do when he’s on an absolute power trip. His character is so detestable but I have to tip my hat to him. Equally impressive are Jacob Latimore and Algee Smith who play characters traumatized, physically and mentally affected by the incident. Anthony Mackie also acquits himself well. The girls, Hannah Murray and Kaitlyn Dever are also really good as Julie and Karen respectively. In smaller roles, John Krasinski, Austin Hebert, Chris Chalk, Ephraim Sykes, Jason Mitchell, Jeremy Strong, Josebh David Jones, Leon Thomas III, Malcolm David Kelley, Nathan Davis Jr. and Peyton Alex Smith play their parts well. On the whole, ‘Detroit’ is a congenial film notwithstanding its flaws, deserves a watch for being well-intentioned.