The Lovers

Relationships, if they get properly started, go from the “honeymoon phase” to beyond.  Sometimes they blossom into consecutive levels of commitment that comes with their assorted labels. A girlfriend becomes a fiance, and a fiance becomes a wife.  But the “beyond” may not be finished, as the wife may become the ex-wife, if things even get that far.  It’s possible that death does us part; however time and boredom kill unions all the same.  If you’ve been in any relationship that resulted in a break-up, then you can replay those stages in your mind, even obsess over it if the mind deems it necessary.

And sometimes a relationship ends to only have time tells us what we enjoyed the most about the person we used to be with.  Because even after the most toxic of liaisons, we may catch ourselves within a reminder in the middle of the night of something we wouldn’t mind having again.  Especially in the realm exclusively left for attraction.  Because feelings may fade, and we may never want a relationship with that person ever again, but what about a single night?  Of course the problem is that a single night could rekindle the honeymoon phase all over again…is that a problem though?.

Azazel Jacobs’ The Lovers takes the marriage gone sour trope and finds a fresh way to resume sparks.  It lets itself have fun through the characters’ genuine surprise of how easily they fall back into place.  It also doesn’t lose sight of the pain that relationships cause, not just in their participants, but those closest to a union’s radius.  It’s a mature and honest look at what happens when something wrong feels right.

The film revolves around Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts), a married couple. They live together, but are estranged from one another. They’re practically zombies when it comes to any interaction.  Not surprisingly they’re both having long-standing extramarital affairs—she with Robert (Aidan Gillen) and he with Lucy (Melora Walters). Their lovers have both emphatically demanded they break up the marriage or else face the world alone and miserable.  Mary and Michael have vowed that they will end things, putting the resounding deadline to do so after an upcoming visit from their son, Joel (Tyler Ross), and his new girlfriend, Erin (Jessica Sula).

This plan goes awry, however, when an early-morning kiss between Mary and Michael leads to sex. They find themselves falling for each-other once again and having passionate sexual encounters. Simultaneously, their respective lovers become more and more needy and demanding, which makes them less appealing to the now in-sync on-again married couple.  But the deadline of the “leave em or lose me” scenario reaches the present as Joel and his girlfriend arrive.  An extra flavor is added with the emotionally scarred Joel warning Erin that his parents marriage is a failed one and that they are horrible people.

All of this is presented in a way that lets us feel like we’re discovering these new feelings with Mary and Michael, which makes their new lease on love way more appealing than their other significant-others.  That was a flaw in the movie for me though, as I almost disliked Robert and did dislike Lucy.  Gillen and Walters are good in their roles, but the characters almost came off as antagonists instead of victims, not that they’re innocent in this situation.  Winger and Letts are excellent though in a pair of sophisticated performances played with the right amount of confusion and acceptance.  I was also impressed with Ross, as Joel, showing us that painful relationships scar more on those who still love both parties.

I’m not sure about the film’s ending; I actually didn’t buy it.  Two decisions that Mary and Michael make resulted in me feeling as though I shouldn’t have wasted my time getting invested in their happiness.  Perhaps that was the point, making me feel like I wanted to break-up with them, even though I know I’ll remember them from time to time.

Grade: B

 

Annabelle: Creation

David F. Sandberg’s Annabelle: Creation continues the new trend of superior prequels to terrible first installments.  It’s a rare thing, but with last year’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, and now Creation…it’s a thing.  The difference is that Creation is a prequel to a terrible film that was a spin-off of a good film…Ouija didn’t have that extra distinction. The good film that Creation was born from is James Wan’s The Conjuring, which garnered its own sequel with last year’s The Conjuring 2.  Its success has produced two spin-offs: Annabelle, and the upcoming The Nun.  Annabelle, the first spin-off, has now resulted in the aforementioned Annabelle: Creation – these films together, along with an inevitable third Conjuring film are part of the “Conjuring Universe.”  Because money.

Studio intentions or not, Wan should be proud of his “world” so far; the two Conjuring films are extremely well designed at playing audiences like a fiddle.  Things stumbled with the first Annabelle because the talent behind the camera couldn’t conjure (HA!) the right amount of finesse it takes to make these types of horror films.  Luckily Creation has been put in the capable hands of Sandberg, director of last year’s Light’s Out, a film produced by Wan, but not part of the “Conjuring Universe,” though I would gladly swipe the first Annabelle out for it.  Sandberg, Wan, and Creation’s well guided and mostly young cast, have churned out another spooky good-time.

The film opens in 1943 with doll-maker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther(Miranda Otto) going about their lives with their young daughter, Bee (Samara Lee).  One day, tragedy strikes resulting in the death of the young girl, and the heartbreak of her parents.  Twelve years later, in 1955, the Mullins open their home to provide shelter for Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and six girls left homeless by the closing of their orphanage.  Samuel Mullin is reserved but kind; Esther is locked away in a downstairs bedroom with half her face covered in a porcelain mask.  Four of the six orphaned girls stick together; the other two are outcasts named Janice (Talitha Eliana Bateman), a girl recovering from polio, and Linda (Lulu Wilson).  They look out for one another and refuse to get adopted if they can’t be together.

These opening scenes introducing us to the characters and the house they will inhabit throughout the film, do an excellent job of making sure the audience understands the layout of the house, and its quirks that will come into play later.  Devices like a shaft within a wall that contains a pully, which runs into the basement, and a mechanical lift-chair that goes up the steps, but will only move if the seat-belt is strapped in.  As an audience we know these devices will be used later on, and we worry about how.  Leading us to the main threat within the house that resides in an upstairs bedroom that’s supposed to remain locked, but we know better.  The bedroom once belonged to the Mullins’ daughter, Bee.  Now it may belong to something else…like a creepy doll possessed by a demon. This results in Janice, the slowest moving character because of her illness, venturing into that room, and unleashing what’s inside it on the rest of the household.

What Creation gets right, much like the first two Conjuring film’s and Light’s Out, is creating sequence after sequence that builds to its breaking point, before starting up once again.  Leaving the audience shrinking in their seat, never letting them up for air before the terror begins again.  This does result in a few issues however; as there’s no good reason for the characters to endure everything they do without getting out of dodge, but I can forgive that.  Less forgivable is how all of the constant fear and jump-scares (which are top-notch) rendered me exhausted by the time the film had reached its last act.  I was drained during Creation’s final thirty minutes, and it ended up hurting my experience.  It’s an issue that plagues even the first two Conjuring films, and it left me with a sour taste.

Still, another thing that Sandberg takes from the Conjuring films, in a good way, is having endearing characters that we care about.  The relationship between Janice and Linda is well-handled, and acted.  Bateman makes Janice full of life despite her shortcomings, which make us worried for her more than we normally would in a lesser horror film.  Wilson, who also starred in the excellent Ouija prequel, naturally takes the reigns as the film’s lead when called upon.  LaPaglia and Otto are solid as scared and grieving parents.  I also really liked Sigman as the the girls’ caretaker/teacher, a much better version of this type of role than normal, especially in these kinds of movies.  I also liked how they used her character in order to set up the universe’s next film, The Nun.  It’s a very slick moment.

But it’s the scares that audiences will come for, and Creation does not disappoint.  If you want to have fun being scared, Creation will fit the bill.  If you want something better than most horror films, Creation should fit the bill.  If you’re already tired of the “Conjuring Universe,” then don’t bother.  I’m not tired yet, so I had fun getting me a fright.

Grade: B-

 

Logan Lucky

Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky is the exact kind of film that can take audiences from the brainless fun of the summer blockbusters and transition them to the more quirky, singular efforts of the Fall season.  An old-fashioned “heist movie” with characters that feel home-grown from the story’s setting.  On the surface, it’s a unique choice for Soderbergh, back after a hiatus of major Hollywood film-making that he once referred to as a retirement. On a second look, it does seem to fit right in with his filmography.  Here’s a film-maker that could transition from the fun Ocean films (11, 12, & 13) to the serious Solaris, and glacially paced two-part Che.  He once faced-off against himself at the Academy Awards with Erin Brockovich and Traffic (winning for the latter), and eventually went on to make Magic Mike.

Soderbergh’s latest echos his Ocean films, in plot and humor, while also bringing in a quirky yet authentic feel that stems from its characters, similar to what the Coen Brothers or Taylor Sheriden do so well. The film is decidedly entertaining, though unremarkable.  It’s twist and turns within the heist plot are minimal and a little misguided, while the film’s humor mostly made me smile as opposed to laughing out loud. Still, for a late August release, I got what I paid for.

Channing Tatum, who has been one of Soderbergh’s frequent flyers, plays Jimmy Logan, a recently unemployed construction worker, who decides to replace looking for another honest job with an ill-advised robbery attempt…for some reason.  He has a young daughter who lives with her mother, played by Katie Holmes, and her new husband in a fancy house.  Jimmy’s daughter loves him, but I guess he wants to show he can provide.  Again, motivations are unclear. Jimmy, having participated in an excavation project under a famous speedway, has the inside track on how such a robbery can be accomplished. He invites the participation of his one-armed brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), and his sister, Mellie (Riley Keogh). However, the three of them aren’t enough. They need an expert safe cracker and the only one they know is Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), who is currently incarcerated and therefore difficult to obtain. Jimmy considers this, and decides that the scheme will also involve breaking Joe out of prison so he can do the job then returning him before anyone notices he’s missing.

The main issue I had was that it truly felt like there was no motivation to do the robbery.  Yes, the unlucky Logan family being fed up with life’s disappointments is the most likely answer, but the film never really gets to the bottom of it, and so, other than the heist itself, there never feels like there’s something to personally overcome.  I guess I felt like the film was missing the Terry Benedict character from the Ocean films.  There are few potential antagonists with a media personality, played by Seth MacFarlane, and an FBI Agent, played by Hilary Swank, but the film never makes them feel like a real threat.  There’s also this side-plot with Jimmy’s daughter’s beauty pageant, that just ends up feeling like a red-herring, and I don’t know if it was needed.

Still, the strength of the film lies in the personality that Soderbergh infuses in it through the characters.  They, at times, feel like they may be the greatest enemy against the robbery being a success.  They don’t appear to be the brightest bunch, but figuring out if they are is part of the fun. Tatum has the most screen-time to work with, and he uses it to flesh out Jimmy as best he can without making him too serious, which would go against the film’s tone.  Driver continues to be watchable no matter what he does, able to evoke being a former military man whose had things done to his body and person, yet still finding ways to be humorous when called upon.  I also thought Riley Keogh really drew attention to herself, a difficult task when being surrounded by more known talent.  Though she already blew me away in this year’s It Comes At Night.   The film is stolen, however, by Daniel Craig – having more fun here than I’ve ever seen him.  Smaller performances by some impressive names like Katherine Waterston, MacFarlane, and Holmes, to name a few, add to the proceedings nicely.  Some like Sebastian Stan as a NASCAR Driver, and Swank feel out of place, though that’s more the screenplay’s fault for making their characters come out of no-where. Just like a scene in the film that discuses the Song of Ice and Fire Book series, which feels too obviously played for laughs.

The film’s biggest issue is it’s last twenty minutes.  First the film feels like it’s about to end; then it feels as though it’s gearing up for a whole new development.  All because it wants to show us a few of its secrets, which kind of renders these last twenty minutes useless. Still, Logan Lucky will be a fun outing for anyone who thinks it looks like a fun outing at the movies.

Grade: B

Good Time

Good Time, written & directed by Benny and Josh Safdie, is like taking a shot of adrenaline that you wish would wear off, just so you can gather your thoughts.  The film is a gritty and kaleidoscopic odyssey that knows it takes place on a singular-crazy night; a contrast to the norm.  If you’ve ever had a particular evening of inebriation that stands out among the casual Friday nights, then you might have a way to relate to the film’s mood.  Sometimes there comes a moment on one of said nights where you break away from the feeling of being exhilarated, and are able to slow everything down.  It’s here when you realize you’re in the middle of something you can’t escape, until whatever it is that’s affecting you wears off.  It’s also here when you notice how abnormal you’re feeling, and how sights and sounds are out of focus and garbled.  It’s a paralyzing state.

Good Time lives in that state of mind, from about fifteen minutes into its run-time until its final moments, where it slows down once again.  It will draw comparisons to the work of Martin Scorsese, particularly After Hours, though it’s a darker piece than that. But it has the same sense of grime and spontaneity that only a cold, strange night in New York City can bring.  The kind of night where you begin with one goal, and get inexplicably side-tracked again and again until you almost can’t remember how or why the night began.  The Safdie brothers ride this adrenaline and momentum, along with a career best performance by Robert Pattinson, to something that ends up being a one hell of a trip.

The story begins in a therapy session that sees Nick (one of the film’s writer/directors, Benny Safdie), a mentally handicapped and troubled young man, struggle with the doctor’s questions.  The session is interrupted by Connie (Pattinson), Nick’s brother and self-appointed caretaker.  He claims that these visits do his brother no good, so he devises a plan to rob a local bank in order for the two of them to get away and start a new life. It’s clear from these opening moments that Connie loves his brother with all of his heart, though it also suggested that he’s a type of poison that will only do his brother harm.

That harm comes to fruition when the bank robbery goes wrong, causing Nick to be captured  and arrested while Connie gets away.  His brother is being held in Rikers Island, a notoriously terrible jail-complex, one that Nick will not survive in.  Connie begins his task of bailing his brother out by heading to a bail-bondsman, only to be told that he needs another ten thousand dollars in order to make it happen.  He attempts to use his pathetic, sort-of girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to try and come up with the money, but once that doesn’t work, he’s seemingly out of options.  A fight in the prison that leaves Nick in Elmhurst Hospital, gives Connie a slim chance to find his brother and get him out.  He tries, and that’s where I’ll let the film surprise with the ride it has in store.  A ride that goes from a bizarre stranger’s house to an amusement park, and back again.  A ride where Connie encounters characters that shouldn’t have any place in this story, yet every new one that enters feels par for the course.

The film uses each one of these twists and turns to fuel the main character’s frustration and anxiety, which in turn spreads to the audience.  It’s imagery, especially the scenes at the amusement park, become more and more vibrant, and creates a sense of things spilling out of control.  All the while, if you can pause yourself for a moment, as you watch the film, you may ask, “maybe this isn’t the best way to help your brother.”  Which is precisely the point when it comes to the character of Connie.   Pattinson is wide-eyed and unhinged, with his voice crackling as fast as Connie must think, all without betraying the compassion for Nick.  I’ve heard others compare him here to a young Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, a comparison that sounds as accurate as I can think of.  He’s that good here.  Benny Safdie as Nick is excellent as well, creating a young man that must be frustrating to care for, yet it’s easy to see why Connie goes to the lengths he does for him.  All the other actors have minor appearances, one particular overshadows things a bit, as he sounds like the Douche played by Nick Kroll in Sausage Party.  Still, they function as a means to an end.

As far as where the film ends up; some may find it anti-climactic; others will find that it renders the proceedings pointless.  While I did wish for more, I found that this was not about where things end up, so much as the journey to it.  And the journey that the Safdie Brothers take us on is one full of moments so immersive and outlandish that I almost had to fight in order to take myself out of that immersion, and catch my breath.  The film’s brisk run-time propels it forward and true, all to a heavily synthesized soundtrack that never lets your ears rest.

I can’t say I had a good time at Good Time, but I trusted it’s filmmakers to take me somewhere, and the experience became so hypnotizing, that I’m glad I was able to return to normal when it was over.  And that is some impressive stuff.

Grade: B+

Wind River

“Out here, you cannot blink, not once, not ever.”

This quote from Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River is twofold in its meaning.  It refers to the film’s setting –  an unforgiving and desolate landscape, where all the world is quiet until there comes a singular deadly moment, loud for an instant before becoming silent once again.  The quote also refers to a tragic lesson learned by one of its characters, where letting your guard down when it comes to those you love, means you’ve left them unprotected for whatever awaits them.  More than that, Wind River is about how we cope with our tragedies by surrendering to them with grace…in the quiet.

About twenty minutes into Wind River I  realized that I was watching something special.  The film’s plot, setting, and characters had all been introduced, and all put into a familiar motion that was propelling the film forward in a brisk and natural fashion.  But what I found so compelling was how the film presented itself with such a genuine honesty, that I couldn’t help but give in, and let it wash over me.  It’s a weird feeling to describe, almost like how we allow ourselves to be vulnerable around a person because we trust them with our emotions.  I trusted Wind River, and it rewarded me with everything I could ask for in a movie. 

Sheridan, the writer of the great Sicario and Hell or High Water, makes his directorial debut here with confidence and delicacy.  His screenplays all have the strength of letting their humor and drama come from the personalities of the characters, personalities that are directly infused by their surroundings and those in positions of influence.  If you think about it, this aspect of Sheridan’s writing is what makes his films so relatable, even if they takes place in worlds we’ve never set foot in.  We relate to them because that’s how life works; we are creatures of our environment and those we share them with.   His ability to sprinkle his stories with these intimate insights allows them to feel just right.  This lets his simple tales, filled with familiar tropes, feel authentic and special, while a lesser filmmaker would fall into a pit of clichés.

The film opens at night, with a young Native American woman running across a snowy landscape, surrounded by nothing by mountains, trees, and the fatal cold.  She stumbles, falls into the white surface, and spits up blood.  A few days later her body is found by Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a game tracker, who recognizes the girl as Natalie, a friend of his daughter’s.  The death has occurred in an area just outside of Wind River, an Indian Reservation and town in Wyoming.  Wind River has the police force of maybe six total officers, led by the Chief, played by Graham Greene.  Because of the nature of the situation, the FBI send an agent to determine if it was a murder in order for there to be full investigation.  Enter Agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), from Florida, but stationed in Las Vegas…and unfamiliar with the elements of a constant cold that can kill you.  Upon arrival, Jane quickly discovers that she’s in over her head with no outside help, so she looks to Cory to help her see what she isn’t trained to look for in such a land.

That very simple plot implies that the film is going to be about a murder mystery with various twists and turns, but Sheridan avoids those turns as if they were dangerous off-road ramps.  The film’s central plot of the investigation happens in a natural progression; one clue leads to the next, until the culprit is found.  What’s important is that every instance of the characters getting closer to solving who killed Natalie, is an instant that the film lets the characters, and their relationships unfold. Nothing feels cheap; any scene that involves violence, humor, or pathos comes organically.  And though we get many shots of a beautiful and frightening snow-filled landscape, they’re not showy.  The film uses its setting like a grieving blanket of white over the emotions the characters contend with.  It’s violence is sudden and swift, and over in an instant.  It’s characters get to have lingering moments where we don’t need them to speak in order to understand where their minds are.  When they do speak though, the words feel so absolute that I didn’t feel as though I was hearing actors speak dialogue, but instead I was listening to people talk.

Renner gives a career-best performance.  An actor mostly used in supporting roles these days, gets to show why he was the lead in The Hurt Locker.  His Cory has an agonizing past, one that the film lets Renner infuse in every moment.  Olsen is also fantastic here, playing a role that would be easy to fall into something familiar, yet she finds a way to let it feel important.  Greene as the Police Chief is a role that he’s played before, but he plays it to perfection.  My favorite performance in the film goes to Gil Birmingham, who plays Natalie’s grieving father.  Sheridan used Birmingham’s talents in Hell or High Water for mostly lovable humor in a winning performance to be sure, but here he’s something incredible.  Especially a moment when we see tears start to come to his eyes, and we know that it’s the first time he’s letting himself break.

What more can I say about a film where a shot of a few opened birthday cards choked me up. And it did so because I’ve seen that image in my life before, and I’ve seen the pain behind it.  The times when we choose to sit in silence and miss someone for a while.  Wind River, however, doesn’t miss a thing.

Grade: A+

The Dark Tower

I’ve always found Stephen King’s novels to be quite dense and overlong for the stories he tells.  I think he’s exceptional at coming up with ideas that can sustain a story, and in most cases a successful film adaptation, but he just doesn’t know when to quit.  And in most cases his brick-sized books end in disappointing fashion, especially after all of the build up.  I think he’s much more impressive as a short-story writer, where his brilliant ideas get to be at the forefront of his tales.  Having said that, I’m a big fan of his “Dark Tower” series; it’s King’s largest and grandest piece of work, taking thirty years to complete, and containing characters and concepts from his other works.  It has developed legions of fierce and loyal fans, all of whom should not go see 2017’s adaption if they want to see something faithful, or…you know…good.

This adaption has been in development hell for something like ten years.  The most common plans for it were in which we would get multiple films with a television series in the middle.  Various director/actor combinations have become attached and detached to the product, beginning with JJ Abrams and Lost show-runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, to Ron Howard who had the rights to it for quite a while.  Alas it eventually fell into the hands of Sony and director Nikolaj Arcel, who’ve made a by-the-numbers- studio movie that isn’t terrible, so much as unimpressive.

King’s magnum-opus contains roughly a million words, and the author cites “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” as it’s greatest influences.  Arcel has taken those influences and made a film with no discernible tone or voice.  Oh, he does use a “fish out of water” scenario in the film’s third act, but that’s it.  Sadly all of that vast world-building and richly populated emotion in the novels is no where to be found here.  This adaptation takes those million words and throws them into a blender by using material from five of the books, while having the story take place after the series entirely.  All within the prism of a PG-13 studio-friendly 88 minutes.  Honestly, the fake poster in the film The Mist is more faithful.  But beyond that, The Dark Tower is bland, rushed, and mediocre.

The film begins in present-day New York City where adolescent, Jake (Tom Taylor), is having visions of The Dark Tower, The Man in Black, and The Gunslinger. Fearing that he is mentally unstable, his mother, Laurie (Katheryn Winnick), and step-father (awful, useless character) send him to an upstate clinic for testing. Realizing he is about to be kidnapped by people from his visions, Jake escapes and follows said visions to an abandoned house that contains a hidden portal. Entering it, he is transported to Mid-World, where he meets Roland Deschain, The Gunslinger (Idris Elba) and joins him on his quest to kill the nefarious sorcerer Walter o’Dim, The Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey). Simultaneously, Walter realizes that Jake is the boy he has been waiting for; a child  with sufficient psychic power to destroy The Dark Tower, a monument that protects the universe from the monsters that exist outside, thought the film give the structure no sense of grandeur or mystique.  And why not?  It isn’t important or anything really.

The story structure consists of three acts: on (Keystone) Earth before going to mid-world; mid-world; back to Earth after being in Mid-World.  There’s nothing surprising or striking to anything that happens; it just happens.  It reeks of studio-heavy interference, that forces it to become something made by people who don’t seem to care for what they’re making.

The two bright spots are the performances by Elba and Taylor.  Elba, a side-character in what should be his movie, displays the right amount of pent-up rage and controlled despair to make Roland stand-out.  He has a good chemistry with Taylor, and in a better movie, the two would’ve been allowed their solid character performances to be used properly.  They both really give it an emotional try that made me want to see them re-cast in a better adaptation of the story.  McConaughey is having fun here, but he does nothing particularity memorable that would render him irreplaceable. Though I do think he could do a better Walter/Randal Flagg in something like “The Stand.”

The film’s set-pieces are dark, ugly, and without grace.  The visuals are mostly sub-par, save for a few shots in the barren Mid-World.  The CGI is particularity lousy, almost feeling like it’s a few years behind, or a few dollars under budget.  Nothing is as bad as when these three elements are combined in a terrible finale that takes place in dusty corridor, with a final showdown that looks like the Voldemort/Dumbledore fight in Order of the Phoenix, minus being fun to look it.

The television series that’s supposed to follow this film still has the green-light, for now.  But I can’t help but think, why bother?  The film wraps everything up so quickly and dubiously, that it felt like it wants to be nixed and tried again.   Just do that.  Try again.

Actually try though.

Grade: D+

Detroit

Every stage of our lives is made up of a series of moments. Eventually, particular moments and incidents encompass our memories of that time.  A week, a day, a month, even a single night can be the nucleus of a period of our lives that span years.  We remember not how we felt throughout the whole time, but in those moments when we felt it the strongest.  Because that’s where our core was most shaken, perhaps to never be steadied  again.  As result of this, a single night becomes the week, it becomes the year, and eventually it becomes the very something that influences us for the remainder of our lives.  One night can define us; one action can become an imaginary line in our existence that we can look back on and say “that night separates my before and after.”  It’s how someone can go from understanding that every group has good and bad in them, to believing all are evil.  All because of the actions of a few on one night.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit is about one of those nights.   Though the title implies the film has a wider reach, it’s more about one location on one evening that encompassed all that was wrong during a very dark week in American history.   It’s about a seldom heard story that got lost in the fire during the five day 12th Street Riots in the summer of 1967 in Detroit.   When those five days were over, 43 people had died and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage were caused because of brutality and racism.  The film is a dramatic re-telling of the beginnings of those riots, until it decides to settle in and be a dramatic re-telling of what happened at the Algiers Hotel during the night of July 25-26, and it’s subsequent aftermath.   Because the film chooses to adhere to history, though there is no definitive account of the proceedings, it makes everything feel as though it’s part-journalism/part-movie.  Sometimes the two don’t blend as well as Bigelow wants, but they each work in their own right.

Sadly the story is relevant to today, though I think the best way the film services current events is by showing audiences what it means to be a victim of racism…or at least what it feels like.   Not in the sense that you’ll know what it’s like to be a different skin color, but because you’ll know what it feels like to face a wall because of wrongfully empowered people as they toy with you.  That feeling of terror and persecution is where Detroit is at its best.  And it’s where the feelings of history and drama merge into one.

The film is told in three acts. The first sets up some of the main characters while introducing us to how the riots started.   It’s in this section that we get something that I would’ve expected from a film called Detroit.  But Bigelow is far more interested in what happens in the confined Act Two.  Whether or not this would have been a better film if it focused more on the riots is irrelevant; this film is about what happened at the Algiers Motel, the movie’s centerpiece.  The Algiers was a cheap motel known for prostitution and drugs. When combined law enforcement groups (local cops, state police, and national guard) believe they are being fired upon from one of the motel’s windows, they ransack the place. Resulting in one person dead and nine others (seven black men and two white women) being terrorized and forced to face a wall by three racist cops. There are plenty of members of the law enforcement that see how these three cops crossed the line, but they don’t want to get involved in a civil rights dispute, so they look the other way.  When physical intimidation fails to get the cops what they want (the name of the supposed “sniper”), they begin a game of psychological torture that goes even more wrong when one officer misunderstands what’s going on and kills one of the suspects.

 

 

This section of the film is so good, and so relentlessly upsetting that it may be too much for some.  Bigelow’s approach is similar to her efforts with The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, as the camera always feels over the shoulder or like its leaning in to catch every drop of sweat.  Some have said that this feels like a horror movie, and that’s true for this middle section, where it feels like serial killers have trapped a family in a house and force them to take part in a sadistic game.  But feelings of terror aside, this also has to pack an emotional punch, and it does thanks to the cast.  Detroit’s  “main” character is an almost Motown singer, Cleveland Larry Reed  (Algee Smith), who along with his friend, Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), are on their way home from a canceled performance when they take refuge at The Algiers. There they meet Juli Hysell (Hannah Murray) and Karen Malloy (Kaitlyn Dever), two possible ways to get laid. Another man staying in the motel is Vietnam Vet Robert Green, played by Anthony Mackie. The three racist cops are portrayed by Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, and Ben O’Toole. John Boyega is Melvin Dismukes, a security guard who leaves his nearby post to help out the law enforcement.  The reason why this cast is so good is because they all feel like real people; some of them are flawed; some of them are awful; some of them are just unlucky.  Even the racist cops are shown to be human beings that are effected by the things they do and see, making them all the more upsetting as villains.

My issues with the film arise once this section at the Algiers ends and we move on to Act Three, which isn’t nearly as interesting, especially after being so emotionally beaten to a pulp during Act Two.   This is where history and drama failed to mix for me.  This is also where the film makes its point about how one night can change a person, and it can influence a forever divide.  I felt like the message was appropriate, but the film also delivered it too messily.  However you may find it to be incredibly moving depending on what you bring into it.  Maybe it will trigger heavy emotions and be an unpleasant and powerful experience.  Maybe you’ll wish it had more to say; maybe you’ll be thankful for what it did say.  Detroit wants to be about an all-encompassing and awful thing, personified through the events of single night.  Whatever it is you’re looking for, you’ll find really good movie.

Grade: B+