Detroit

Throughout the ages, what was once a place to go and escape your problems, multiplexes have become quite the place to learn different lessons. Granted there are still plenty of films to escape into, however once in a while we need to acquiesce to being taught. We've all seen message films for decades which include "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Inherit the Wind", "Judgment at Nuremberg", "Schindler's List", "The Butler", "12 Years a Slave", "Selma" and many others. One might say we've seen enough, but so much of the time we need repeating in order to teach us again and this lesson is in the form of "Detroit".

 

A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest RACE riots in United States history. The story is centered around the Algiers Motel incident which occurred in Detroit, Michigan on July 25th, 1967, during the racially charged 12th Street Riot. It involves the death of three black men and the brutal beatings of nine other people: seven black men and two white women.

As the tension rises, everyone is walking on eggs as this riot rages on. Two buddies in the Algiers Motel, Carl (Jason Mitchell) and Michael (Malcolm David Kelley) are playing with a gun just funning around and all of a sudden the gun goes off only to attract a very weary and overworked group of police officers, Krauss (Will Poulter) and Flynn (Ben O'Toole). As they approach the motel, they bang the door open and start gathering everyone up that was staying there. Others include Larry Cleveland (Algee Smith), Fred (Jacob Latimore), Julie (Hannah Murray), Greene (Anthony Mackie), Karen (Kaitlyn Dever) and others. During the row, the noises coming from the motel attract a nearby security guard, Carl Dismukes (John Boyega) which besomes the start of the unraveling of the tyranny of these cops.

 

Others to round out the cast are Jack Reynor as Demens, Nathan Davis Jr. as Aubrey, John Krasinski as Attorney Auerbach and Joseph David-Jones as Morris.

 

This was brilliantly directed by Kathryn Bigelow ("The Loveless" '81, "Near Dark" '87, "Blue Steel" '90, "Point Break" '91, "Strange Days" '95, "The Weight of Water" 2000, "K-19: The Widowmaker" '02, "The Hurt Locker" '08, "The Miraculous Year" (TV movie) '11, "Zero Dark Thirty" '12) plus TV and shorts. Bigelow really does have the ability to bring out the frenetic electricity of her actors in her films, this movie being of no exception. She basically puts the 'I' in intense: look at her resume and you'll see my point. The way she rapidly utilized the camera (Barry Ackroyd, bsc) being behind the camera, to make the situations alarming and out-of-control was brilliant. It was equally well executed by writer Mark Boal ("The Hurt Locker" '08, "Zero Dark Thirty" '12). Bigelow has been very smart about using Boal as her writer, because he knows how to make scenes incredibly intense while at the same time convey them as a very real situation. These two filmmakers work extremely well together. If you like Boal's work, "Triple Frontier" is in pre-production and slated for a 2019 release. Hollywood, take note, this is a writer to contend with. Writers like this should be in great demand in Hollywood considering all the ineffective, banal writers out there today.

 

Teams like Bigelow and Boal don't come along too often, so it is refreshing to see any of the films they do. A lot of their subject matter in the films they create aren't exactly warm and fuzzy, but the craft of the films more than compensate. This, like their other films definitely have a clear message that we, the audience should take note on, otherwise we become a too complacent society bent on non-change.

 

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                   Rated: R                                    143mins.