MOTOR CITY MADNESS

Detroit a gripping look at racial divide that still rings true

Even with a running time of well beyond two hours, director Kathryn Bigelow has to move fast to set up the story she’s telling in Detroit.

Like other cities in the U.S. during the late 1960s — Newark, Chicago, Washington, Baltimore — Detroit erupted in rioting due to ongoing intense racial discord. The population of the city in 1967 was about 45 per cent African-American; the police force was almost 100 per cent white.

Detroit begins with a police raid on a speakeasy, a roundup that quickly escalates. An angry crowd gathers and the situation spirals out of control; actual news footage from the time blends seamlessly into the movie as scenes of rioting and looting begin.

Eventually, the National Guard is called in and the city is under siege.

Against that scenario, the story now follows a handful of characters more closely.

We meet Officer Krauss (Will Poulter) chasing and shooting a looter — in the back.

Here is Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a uniformed security guard; then there’s Larry Reed (Algee Smith) whose band, The Dramatics, is onstage when police clear the theatre, ruining a chance to perform.

Larry and a handful of other young men wind up at

the Algiers Motel, where they encounter a Vietnam vet (Anthony Mackie) and a couple of white girls from out of town (Kaitlyn Dever and Hannah Murray), among others.

An incident draws the National Guard and local police to the Algiers.

The police take over an interrogation of the motel guests, and what unfolds next is indescribable horror — a sort of distillation of the racism of the day. When it’s over, nine people are badly beaten up and three young black men are dead.

There are trials and lawsuits to follow, not to mention — in real life — bestselling books, plays, academic papers and more, and yet very few people outside Detroit know anything about what happened at the motel.

Detroit is an imperfect, but entirely gripping drama. More context at the front end of the film would have been helpful, but it’s probably impossible to capture all that history in one picture.

See it for what is reveals about what’s changed in America’s racial divide over the last 50 years: absolutely nothing.