Detroit Is An Unflinching Look At The Horrors Of The Past That Echo The Horrors Of The Present

A sentiment I heard from one fellow attendee of my screening of Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit was something along the lines of "And that (that being instances of racially motivated police brutality) still happens to this day!" Which is, tragically, all too true. We still have too many individuals who lose their lives at the hands of officers simply due to the color of their skin. No, obviously not every police officer is evil, far from it, but there are societally ingrained problems in American society that instill the idea of racism into many people occupying a large assortment of occupations, including the role of a police officer. But just because the problem isn't exclusive to the realm of law enforcement officers doesn't mean it shouldn't be recognized, especially since such officers inhabit one of the few jobs where you're given weapons to kill people.


It's in this horrifically all too relevant idea that the brutal and well-made feature Detroit focuses on as a movie by cinematically recreating the instance of racially motivated police brutality that led to the multiple deaths at the Algiers Hotel in Detroit, Michigan back in 1967 during the same point in time that the Detroit Riots were occurring. The film proper begins with depicting the various events that led to those Detroit Riots, which allows Mark Boal's screenplay to properly introduce a number of members of its ensemble cast. Among these characters is security guard Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), aspiring singer Larry Reed (Algee Smith), youngster Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) and the racist violence prone police officer Phillip Krauss (Will Poulter).

All of these individuals clash into each other as Krauss, accompanied by a number of other police officers and Dismukes, investigate some shots that were fired in the vicinity of the Algiers Hotel. The residents at the hotel at that night, including Reed, Temple and Vietnam veteran Greene (Anthony Mackie), are all lined up against a wall and held there for hours on end while Krauss and the other officers intimidate them for knowledge about a shoot that they keep telling him (truthfully) they do not have. In order to get the information he wants, Krauss and his teams unleash torment, racial epithets and both threats of and actual acts of violence against the various predominately non-white individuals being interrogated.

These scenes at the Algiers hotel, which comprise the vast majority of the middle portion of the motion picture, are stomach-churning, to say the least. Despite my own concerns going into the movie that this would all turn out to just be "torture porn" but for black people suffering, the characters themselves are well-defined and the violence shown on-screen doesn't feel exploitative, it feels more like how, Saving Private Ryan depicts wartime carnage in that there's an underlying thematic point to its depictions of brutal violence, it's not like in, say, Hacksaw Ridge where all the violence is talked about by the in-movie characters in horrified tones but it's depicted in an inappropriately stylized manner. It helps too that they take a cue from Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained in that certain pieces of truly terrifying violence against a specifically disenfranchised group are done off-screen so that it doesn't feel like the movie is just exploiting real violence for shock value by actually depicting it visually. It's an all around thoughtful way to handle the grisliness of this event in a way that lends the bigoted violence we do see have real impact while not having those same depictions of brutality come off as gratuitous, though I should note that, as a White guy, I should not be considered the authority on what is and what isn't tasteful depictions of historical violence against African-Americans in pop culture.

I imagine that it helps that actual victims of the horrors at the Algiers hotel were on the set of this movie to be a guiding point of precision in the visual depiction of this event. Perhaps being so in touch with real-life individuals involved in this case is why Detroit's depictions of real-life characters are so involving. Larry Reed, in particular, makes for an excellent protagonist in the story, his dreams of being a singer are depicted in a way that makes ya care for the guy and ensure that an early scene showing him singing on a stage to an empty auditorium feels appropriately quietly heartbreaking. Reed is played Algee Smith, a newcomer who is an absolute dream come true in the role in terms of having both a beautiful singing voice and commanding an immensely engaging performance throughout the entire movie.

Fellow lead actor of Detroit John Boyega is thoroughly remarkable as Melvin Dismukes, a guy walking a deft racial tightrope of sorts in his job and scenes showing him grappling with this part of his job (such as an African-American kid he tries to protect calling him an "Uncle Tom" or a not so subtly menacing interrogation by two white superior officers) are some of the most potent in the movie. Jacob Latimore and Anthony Mackie also turn in smaller but no less impressive work, especially Latimore whose really becoming an impressive young force to be reckoned with acting-wise. These four, as well as plenty of others in the large cast, do a noteworthy job of conveying loads of personality even in minimal bursts of screentime. On the other hand, there's Will Poulter, whose chilling in how he plays this law enforcement character by making the way he drops all these racist pieces of language or interrogation tactics feel like it's oh so natural to Phillip Krauss. Acting like this is second nature to him, he doesn't even have to exert all that much effort to come across as confrontational to people of darker skin hue than him. It's an all around intimidating performance that taps into terrifying realism and Poulter pulls off to an appropriately horrifying effect.

Director Kathryn Bigelow does a commendable job getting such high-quality performances out of her ensemble cast while reutilizing the handheld camera method of filming that cropped up in her two most recent films prior to Detroit actually fits the story well and works in execution, and remember, this is coming from a guy that detests shaky-cam usually. All of that having been said, Detroit does feel like a step down in quality from Bigelow's last two movies (especially her masterwork, Zero Dark Thiry), primarily in Mark Boal's script. The expansive scope of the screenplay allows certain characters to flourish but it also leaves other facets of the movie to feel undercooked. For instance, a great emphasis in placed on rioters in the first act but Detroit never really gets around to humanizing these individuals who were such a big part of the larger historical event the Algiers Hotel tragedy occurred in.

It should also be noted that there are some clunky pieces of dialogue scattered through that take stand out in a movie this grim and hewing so close to reality, particularly the verbiage used by a white cop to let a wounded African-American individual know that he's an ally, that particular moment produced understandable guffaws throughout my screening. But even recognizing those foibles doesn't conceal how Detroit is, overall, a high-quality movie with a gangbusters cast and an incredibly well-realized sense of intensity that places the viewer right inside the violent horrors perpetrated at the Algiers Hotel that fateful 1967 night. It's very understandable if this feature comes off as one that would be too hard to sit through, but if you do feel that you'll be able to watch it, I do recommend viewing the powerfully well-made and high quality drama Detroit.