Detroit (2017) review

Director Kathryn Bigelow has been in the film industry for quite a few decades now. While most of her early works didn’t do so well at the box-office, that didn’t stop them from attracting considerable acclaim from critics. This included, among others, 1987’s Near Dark and 1995’s Strange Days. Back then, one of her biggest collaborators was her ex-husband, fellow director James Cameron. Nowadays, her biggest collaborator is journalist turned screenwriter Mark Boal. They first worked together on 2009’s The Hurt Locker, which went on to win six Oscars at that year’s ceremony, including Best Original Screenplay for Boal, a Best Director win for Bigelow (making her the first female director to win the award), and most importantly, Best Picture. Three years later, they teamed up again for Zero Dark Thirty, which recounted the events of the U.S. government’s decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden. Like The Hurt Locker, it attracted rave reviews from critics. However, it also sparked much controversy for various reasons (e.g. its allegedly ‘pro-torture’ mentality) and it only won for Best Sound Editing at that year’s Oscar ceremony, an honor which it shared with Skyfall in a rare Oscars tie. This year, Bigelow and Boal are back with their third major collaboration together, Detroit. Like Zero Dark Thirty, it’s based on a true story; in this instance, the 12^th Street Riots, which occurred from July 23^rd to July 27^th, 1967 (half a century ago now) in Detroit, Michigan. In this film, Bigelow and Boal primarily focus in on one of the most infamous incidents that occurred during the rioting at a local spot known as the Algiers Motel, which resulted in the deaths of three African-American teenagers and the brutal beatings of the other men and women tied to the event by a collection of corrupt, racist cops. And thanks to brilliant performances and an unflinching look at what happened that night, Detroit is sure to be another major awards contender for this dynamic director-writer duo.  

On Sunday, July 23rd, 1967, members of the Detroit Police Department raid a party that’s going on inside an illegal speakeasy located on 12^th Street. As the police begin to round up those in the establishment, the angry responses from nearby onlookers soon turn violent, resulting in a full-blown riot that lasts several days. As looters begin to rob stores and buildings start burning all over the city, the National Guard is brought in to aid Detroit’s predominantly-white police force in their attempts to quell the rioters. However, this incident soon becomes even more serious on July 26^th. During a night of intense rioting, Larry Reed (Algee Smith), a member of the local band known as the Dramatics, and his friend Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), decide to retreat to the Algiers Motel to avoid getting into any trouble with the cops. While there, one of the residents, Carl Cooper (Jacob Mitchell), jokingly pretends to fire a toy gun at the police officers and National Guardsmen situated outside the motel. However, this immediately causes the officers to react in retaliation to this supposed ‘sniper’. Once all the people in the building are rounded up, a trio of police officers, Krauss (Will Poulter), Demens (Jack Reynor), and Flynn (Ben O’Toole) take charge of the situation to try and figure out who the shooter was. However, their aggressively cruel handling of everything soon sends shockwaves throughout the entire city while simultaneously adding more fuel to the fire in these racially tense times.

While the film mainly focuses in on one incident from this whole ordeal, Bigelow and Boal fully immerse you into the chaos that came from the Detroit riots. Now admittedly though, because of this, the film doesn’t exactly delve fully into everything that led to the rioting, save for a brief animated intro that goes over the racial divide at the time. Still, thanks to Bigelow’s trademark shooting style and editing work, the film manages to establish an impressive sense of realism, something that’s become another trademark of Bigelow’s recent films. The sheer brutality that is exerted by the racist and corrupt officers involved in the Algiers incident is portrayed in a completely unwavering matter. Now, with that said, the film does take some creative liberties with the events of that night. Obviously, this is something that happens all the time with films that are based on true stories. But in this case, this is very much emphasized and it’s even acknowledged in the end credits. Because after all, not everything that happened that night at the Algiers has been completely documented. However, I do think that Bigelow and Boal did manage to get the point across in terms of the horrific nature of the atrocities that happened there on that summer night. Bottom line, this is by no means an easy watch. With that said, though, while the film does share a similarly hefty runtime with Bigelow and Boal’s last film, Zero Dark Thirty, this one flowed much better, by comparison, thanks to far superior pacing. In other words, there wasn’t any major part of this film that dragged. In fact, I’d say that this film does a lot of things better than Zero Dark Thirty, especially in terms of it giving us a more emotionally-involved story.

The film takes a similar route that Dunkirk took a few weeks back by not necessarily having a definitive main character. Instead, it focuses in on the various people who were involved in the situation, from the lone African-American officer, security guard Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), who got caught up in the whole ordeal to the two young white women who were brutally assaulted alongside the African-American men at the Algiers, Juli Hysell (Hannah Murray) and Karen Malloy (Kaitlyn Dever). And overall, everyone in the cast does an excellent job in their respective roles. Boyega’s character, Dismukes, isn’t front and center like the trailers have implied but he does do an excellent job as one of the few ‘honest cops’ in this situation who finds himself put under intense scrutiny due to him being one of the few African-American officers in the city. The same applies to the other big names of the cast who mainly occupy minor supporting roles, including Anthony Mackie as one of the men harassed by the officers at the Algiers, Jacob Mitchell as Carl Cooper, and John Krasinski as the attorney for the corrupt cops when they get charged with murder. Ultimately, the two biggest characters in the film are newcomer Algee Smith as Larry Reed and Will Poulter as Krauss, the ‘leader’ of the corrupt cops. The parts of the storyline revolving around Larry and his friend Fred are what ultimately gives the film its most prevalent bits of emotional depth. On the flip side, you have Poulter doing a phenomenal job at being the most despicable character in the film; seriously, his character openly states that he blames the black community for all the rioting. It’s a lot like Michael Fassbender’s performance in 12 Years a Slave. He’s playing a completely vile character and yet is so good in the role that you can’t take your eyes off him either no matter how hard you try.

Overall, I feel that Detroit did a lot of things better than the last Bigelow/Boal feature, Zero Dark Thirty. Because while both films focused on a major event in U.S. history, Zero Dark Thirty suffered from being too devoid of emotional depth, resulting in quite a lot of dry proceedings. And while Detroit may not always succeed at showcasing the struggles that were going on in Detroit at that time, it’s a far more engrossing story by comparison. Because after all, at the risk of stepping too far into political territory here (something that I don’t like to do in my reviews), stuff like this is still happening today. While it’s been over half of century since these events transpired, we’re still seeing incidents like this where African-Americans are dealing with intense discrimination from the police. This makes Detroit such an important film in this current landscape because it doesn’t relent in showcasing one of the darkest moments in our country’s history. Heck, I even agree with the common consensus that’s being tossed around in that the whole sequence focusing on the Algiers Motel incident very much feels like something out of a horror film. Like I said before, this film can often be emotionally taxing to watch, especially during the finale that covers the corrupt cops’ subsequent murder trial (without giving the full details of it away for those unaware of what happened, the results aren’t pretty). However, thanks to strong performances from its ensemble cast and the equally strong direction from Kathryn Bigelow, Detroit is sure to be another big awards contender for Bigelow and writer Mark Boal. Admittedly, I wouldn’t call this film ‘perfect’ but it’s still very much a must-see.

Rating: 4.5/5

Kathryn Bigelow/Mark Boal Double Feature Review

This weekend sees the release of the new crime drama, Detroit. Based on the infamous 12^th Street Riot that occurred in Detroit, Michigan half a century ago in 1967, it is the latest film from director Kathryn Bigelow. Bigelow has been working in the film industry since 1978 and has often worked alongside her ex-husband, James Cameron. While most of her early works did not attract much attention at the box-office, many of them fared excellently with critics, including the 1987 vampire western Near Dark and the 1995 sci-fi thriller Strange Days. She also helmed the 1991 action thriller Point Break, a film that has gone on to become one of the most famous action films of the 90’s. But today, I won’t be doing a ‘Directorial Retrospective’ on Bigelow’s career, and that’s only because I don’t have enough time to get it done before Detroit is released. Instead, I’m going to focus solely on the last two films that she directed since they share a common factor, the same screenwriter. Both these films were written by Mark Boal who, prior to his work in the film industry, served as a journalist for the likes of Rolling Stone and Salon. Detroit serves as the third collaboration between the two and it’s a partnership that has earned them much critical praise. And from the looks of it, that hot streak will continue with Detroit. Thus, today on Rhode Island Movie Corner, I’ll be doing a double feature review of 2009’s The Hurt Locker, which won the Oscar that year for Best Picture, and 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty which, despite tons of critical praise, attracted a fair amount of controversy over one of the biggest aspects of its narrative.

THE HURT LOCKER (2009)

We start off today’s proceedings with 2009’s The Hurt Locker. Although technically a 2008 production, it didn’t see a wide release until the following year and, thus, it ended up being a contender during 2009’s awards season. And it did well during that awards season in a run that was capped off by it winning the Oscar for Best Picture. Kathryn Bigelow also became the first female director to win the Oscar for Best Director, and rightfully so. The Hurt Locker is a highly suspenseful war film, and not just because it focuses on the day-to-day proceedings of bomb disposal squadrons in Iraq. A lot of the film’s tension also stems from the personal conflicts that emerge within the film’s main squadron, who lose their leader due to an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and get a new leader who’s more gung-ho by comparison. Each of the three main leads, Sgt. William James, Sgt. J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge are well-layered protagonists who each go through their own personal dilemmas that are set against the backdrop of the Iraq War. This includes, but is not limited to, Eldridge’s guilt over his inability to protect his former squad leader and an incident where James attempts to get revenge for the apparent death of a young friend of his, who is revealed to still be alive much later. Bigelow does a fantastic job of showcasing how each of these three guys are affected by the horrors of war, which adds to the tension when you know that, in this environment, any of them could be killed at any moment. Plus, these three are portrayed excellently by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty, respectively. In conclusion, as is the case with any Oscar year, there will most likely be some out there who question this film’s legitimacy as 2009’s Best Picture winner. In this case, though, I do think that it was well-deserving of its Oscar win thanks to its great tension and strong character development.

Rating: 4.5/5

ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012)

After the success of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal teamed up once again in 2012 for a film based around one of the biggest recent events of that time; the successful operation where SEAL Team Six eliminated the notorious leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. However, upon release, while the film was another critical success for the duo, it ended up attracting a considerable amount of controversy for various reasons. The biggest of these was due to sequences in the film where the main characters forcefully interrogate prisoners who are connected to al-Qaeda. This then led to some people arguing that the film carries a pro-torture mentality. Sometime after the film’s release, there was then another bit of controversy when some government officials claimed that the filmmakers weren’t given permission to use the classified information that was tied to the operation… as well as some backlash over the film’s use of audio recordings from September 11^th in the intro. So yeah… this film was easily one of the most controversial films of that year. By comparison, the biggest controversies surrounding The Hurt Locker were a few post-release copyright/defamation lawsuits. Ultimately, though, I won’t be making any comments about any of this film’s controversies here today because I don’t like to get into politics when it comes to my reviews. Instead, I will say that, unfortunately, I found Zero Dark Thirty to be a rather dry political thriller. Now, to be clear, this is not an ‘action’ film; instead, it’s a political drama focusing on the behind-the-scenes efforts of those involved in the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. The big SEAL Team Six raid only takes up the final half-hour of the film. And that’s fine and all, but I feel that the film suffers from two big issues. With a runtime of over two and a half hours, it is way too overlong with a middle section that drags too much. It also doesn’t help that the film is severely lacking in terms of emotional attachment.

Now, for the record, I do get what Bigelow and Boal were going for with this film. Their intent was to show both the stress and the time-sensitive nature of the U.S. government’s hunt for Bin Laden following the September 11 attacks, a situation which becomes even more imperative with each subsequent terrorist attack that happens over the next decade. And for the most part, they do succeed in at least getting that across. I even get why this has been well-regarded as a thinking man’s political thriller. However, there’s ultimately a rather soulless feel to the whole proceedings, partially because it’s hard to connect with any of the main people involved in the operation. The only character in the entire film to get any major bit of character development is Jessica Chastain’s Maya, the young woman who dictates most of the operation. To her credit, Chastain is excellent in the role and while most of the other big names in the film are limited to smaller roles, they all do good jobs as well. This includes the likes of Jason Clarke, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, and Chris Pratt, just to name a few. However, by the end of this film, I found myself left with an empty feeling overall, even during its recreation of the attack on bin Laden’s compound. And the thing is, when this film first came out, I was really looking forward to it because, like many others, I had been caught up in the hype surrounding the country’s success in finally getting bin Laden. But for a film that was touted as the story of the ‘greatest manhunt in history’, said manhunt ended up being quite the underwhelming affair on the big screen.

Rating: 2.5/5