The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Fifty-year-old fire
Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’ re-creates ugly, racism-fueled chapter for city with uneven results
The first act of “Detroit” feels so vividly real, so visceral, that you could be forgiven if, at times, you think you are watching a documentary about the racial riot that set literal and figurative fire to that city 50 years ago. ¶ Thus, it is at least a little disappointing that as the latest work from the incredibly talented director Kathryn Bigelow progresses, it feels increasingly — if never completely — like typical Hollywood fare, with clearly drawn heroes and villains and at least one plot device that smacks of being invented for the big screen.
Again, though, this is Bigelow. She won an Academy Award for directing 2008 war drama “The Hurt Locker,” and her 2012 drama about the operation that led to the death of terrorist figure Osama bin Laden, “Zero Dark Thirty,” is even better. In “Detroit,” she has made another serious film, one in which the good far outweighs the not-so-good.
As she had done on those previous films, she partners with screenwriter-producer Mark Boal, who is said to have done extensive research on what happened in the Midwestern city in summer 1967, when all racial hell broke loose following the raid by police of an unlicensed after-hours drinking establishment frequented by blacks.
That incident, and the rioting and looting that follows immediately afterward, is gripping in “Detroit.”
“Go home!” police order the crowd amassed on the street.
“YOU go home!” the police hear back.
During daylight hours, a politician speaks to a simmering crowd of residents: “This is what I need you to do — I need you to not mess up your own neighborhood. This is your home.”
Those words seem to fall on many a deaf ear, as the rioting and looting continues, some black owners of businesses spray-painting “SOUL BROTHER” on those businesses in hopes they will be spared.
To try to restore order, state and federal officials send to Detroit officers from the Michigan State Police and two divisions from the Army, respectively, leading to the city feeling like an actual war zone.
The main story in “Detroit,” however, centers around a long-and-terrible night at the Algiers Motel, where a large number of blacks — and at least two young white women — are staying. After one black man staying there has a little fun firing a starter pistol from his window in the general direction of authorities, police and military swarm the property.
Some of the key players in the traumatic drama that unfolds are Philip Krauss (Will Poulter), a city police officer who already is staring at charges for the alleged wrongful killing of a black man during the riot; Larry Reed (Algee Smith), the gifted lead singer of up-and-coming R&B group The Dramatics; and Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a black man who works as a security guard — one of two jobs he works to pay the bills — for a nearby grocery store.
What unfolds is something almost out of a horror movie, Krauss leading other officers through an extreme interrogation technique nicknamed the “death game,” while Dismukes does what he can to try to end the ordeal without further violence. (A man is fatally shot as police enter the property.) Reed is one of several suspects ordered to stay facing against the wall as officers grill him and others for the location of what they believe to be a real gun.
No doubt something like what is portrayed by Bigelow and Boal went down five decades ago in Detroit, and it deserves to be given time on screen. Unfortunately, this event is given so much time that it gradually shifts from powerful storytelling to that of the tedious variety. And, despite all of Boal’s research, text at the film’s conclusion acknowledges that all the events of that night are not known, leading the viewer to be skeptical about some shown in the film.
The final act in “Detroit” concerns a court case stemming from the events of that night and, like the portrayal of that awful evening, succeeds in further angering us but lacks the nuance we might have expected from Bigelow. Some of the scenes feel like they’re from a made-for-TV movie — a far cry from this film’s strong start.
“Detroit” benefits from a nice performance from Boyega, flexing some acting muscles he didn’t get to use in 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Although seldom in any real physical danger, Dismukes is in a consistently tough spot, trying to play both sides in the name of a peaceful outcome, and Boyega conveys that struggle well.
No stranger to playing a villain, having done so ably in 2014’s “The Maze Runner,” Poulter knows how to elicit our anger, his Krauss showing the slightest bit of remorse only when it seems his actions may come back to haunt him.
While Smith (“The New Edition Story”) surely got his part largely because of his excellent singing voice, he is up to the task of Reed being the emotional center of the film, even if Reed doesn’t get the worst of it. His character endures and witnesses things that may forever change him.
“Detroit” is affecting — as it is very much designed to be — to be sure. It is not the first reminder of racism in this country, and it won’t be the last.
Yet, given “Detroit” is from Bigelow and Boal, you had to expect this reminder to be even more powerful, more illuminating, more focused.
Ultimately, “Detroit” is a should-see, not the must-see you reasonably expected.