Detroit

Dir: Kathryn Bigelow

2017

***

Although Kathryn Bigelow has made some great films, I’m going to say it, I don’t think she’s all that great a director. Detroit focuses on the Algiers Motel Incident that happened one night during the 12th Street Riots of 1967. The film was released fifty years after the incident and highlights much of the injustices that still to this day are yet to be addressed. Bigelow’s intentions are pure enough though. She was inspired to make the film after the Ferguson riots in the summer of 2014 made the news when a black man was shot dead by a white police officer. It’s a disturbing chapter of American history that draws distressing parallels to the present, so its release is timely. However, I just don’t think the film does the story justice. The film begins with rhythm and blues band ‘The Dramatics’ as they are about to take to the stage. However, just as they are about to have their big moment, the police close down the theatre they are performing in, instructing the audience to go home before the rioting outside approaches the area. Singer Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and friend and manager Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) become separated from the rest of the group after catching a bus into town that is soon set upon. They seek the solitude of the nearby Algiers Motel and make friends with some of the other guests. Believing that they are well away from trouble, the pair relax and hang loose. Meanwhile, some other guests start trouble and fire a toy gun at police, causing a major event in the area. The rest of the film is based on several eye witness statements and testimonies of people staying in the motel. It’s a difficult story to tell as there are so many conflicting accounts and most people involved are now dead or couldn’t be traced to comment. A key eye witness and victim of the incident (Julie Hysell) was on hand during filming and acted as a guide but by and large most of the scenes were treated the best they could. The problem I had with the film was how underdeveloped the story felt. There were obvious restrictions with regards to the facts but the characters themselves all fell incredibly flat. The characters in her two previous films; The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were complex and well balanced, but here in Detroit they are, for want of a better phrase, just black and white. The riots of the time were about resistance and rebellion, Detroit is about helplessness and passivity, so I’m not sure what is meant to be achieved. This particularly nasty incident that saw several innocent young black boys victimised and killed serves little purpose in the grand scheme of things, the film is factual and should be remembered but Bigelow merely opens the window to the audience and shuts it again when all is over. It’s all a bit clumsy, from the introduction to the story’s hanging conclusion. We never really get into the minds of the characters, it is merely a reconstruction based on the few facts that remain from a few witnesses. Once again, Bigelow uses the technique she adopted filming The Hurt Locker whereby she deployed four camera and kept them running constantly from four different positions. Each camera has the flexibility to move around each character and the whole set is lit so they can do so. The reason Bigelow gives for doing this is to minimize the amount of shots needed and to keep the emotions raw as possible but I personally disagree with this method. Some performances need a multitude of shoots to get it right. In a digital age filmmakers have more time to develop as they film, story-boarding is always important and multiple cameras only ever leads to dizzying editing. Better to frame each shot and dress it as is appropriate. There are no close ups and no long shots, it all looks the same, underdeveloped, just like the characters. It’s a nasty but important story that should have been told right. It did have its moments however, it does have a visual flare about it and some of the performances were brilliant, especially from Algee Smith and John Boyega. I didn’t think much of Will Poulter’s performance if I’m being honest, I’m not a huge fan so that helped me dislike his villainous role but by and large I thought he was woefully miscast. It is the fact that it is based on true events that really make the film a moral failure. It may have a few positives but a story like this needed to be handled with more care. I give it three stars but only because of the strong performances by a few of the cast members.