Detroit is a true story about one of the largest riots in United States history
Movie title: Detroit
Movie description: The story is centered around the Algiers Motel incident, which occurred in Detroit on July 25, 1967, where a group of police officers responded to complaints with brutality and retribution rather than justice on their minds which resulted with the death of three black men and the brutal beatings of nine other people.
Summary
Detroit, a true story about one of the largest riots in United States history, is a well-made drama.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, Will Poulter, Algee Smith
Genre: Drama
Year: 2017
Detroit, a new movie from director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days, Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Point Break) is a true story about the riots in Detroit in 1967., one of the largest riots in United States history. The story is centered around the Algiers Motel incident, which occurred in Detroit on July 25, 1967, where a group of police officers responded to complaints with brutality and retribution rather than justice on their minds which resulted with the death of three black men and the brutal beatings of nine other people.
Director Kathryn Bigelow and her team decided to focus more on a depiction of events, to document what happened and not on the reasons why did it happen. Also, the movie doesn’t have the main character which should add to its realism (adding to that half of the movie looks like a documentary) but is actually one of the main problems of the movie – I just didn’t care about any of the characters.
You see, in the first third of the movie we’re watching all this tension rising and threating to erupt at any moment, in the next hour we’re witnessing events in Algiers Motel, and last 10 or 15 minutes addresses events that happened after Algiers Motel incident, mostly a trial of these police officers. In that introduction part, we find little or nothing about characters that we’ll become victims of police brutality in Algiers Motel (John Boyega’s character appears after almost an hour into the movie). So when the violence and torture start, how are we supposed to care about characters that we know almost nothing about? Same can be said about John Krasinski’s character, a lawyer that’s defending these cops. He appears at the end of the movie without prior introduction, tells a couple of sentences during a trial and we’re supposed to care about what he has to say? Also, he was miscast here or it’s just problem with me – he was good in The Office but I can’t take him seriously or see him as any other than Jim Halpert.
You may think I didn’t like Detroit. No, the truth is, I think it is a pretty good drama. The direction is solid, performances from actors are satisfying, the screenplay is good, and although the movie is 20 minutes too long it is interesting to watch. It is just not a great movie it could be if Bigelow and her team gave us characters we care about.