Review #1,284: 'Detroit' (2017)

For her latest feature, following 2008's Oscar winner The Hurt Locker and 2012's Zero Dark Thirty, visionary director Kathryn Bigelow takes us to a different war-zone altogether, the 1967 Detroit riots. While it lacks the nerve-racking tension of the Iraq-set The Hurt Locker and the engrossing detail of the hunt for, capture and execution of Osama bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit lays bare police brutality and civil unrest with all the discomfort of a well-made horror movie, as the paths of various characters caught up in the chaos sweeping the city lead to the Algiers Motel, where many are about to experience the most traumatic experience of their lives, and for some, the last experience they will ever have.

Bigelow attempts to contextualise the central incident by depicting the roots of the rioting: An illegal blind pig in a black Detroit community is raided by predominantly white police, who take an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach to rounding up the bar's inhabitants. A small crowd quickly starts to gather outside, and soon enough the police are being driven out of the area, and neighbourhood shops are being destroyed and looted. Both the Army and National Guard are brought in to bring the troubles under control, while Detroit police hunt down any looters hoping to go unnoticed in the crowds. It's a good thirty minutes before we reach the Motel, and this time is spent establishing the various characters who will become major players later on. These characters are painted in broad strokes, but it's effective enough in establishing the kind of world they inhibit, and why they have good reason to fear the sight of a policeman, innocent or not.

At the film's heart is Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a security guard caught somewhere in between two worlds. He is a figure of authority and takes his job incredibly seriously, but he's also black in an institution made up of mainly white folks, so he finds himself also having to toe the line when dealing with officers clearly harbouring racist feelings. There's also Larry Reed (Algee Smith), the lead singer of R&B group The Dramatics, whose big-break concert is cancelled because of the riots. Larry takes his friend Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) to the Algiers Motel to lay low while the riots calm down, and the two pass the time by chatting to two girls (played by Hannah Murray and Kaitlyn Dever). The girls are actually prostitutes, and the group wind up caught up in a prank involving firing a blank-shooting starter pistol at the police through the window. Believing to be under attack from a sniper, the police and National Guard storm the Motel and begin a night of humiliation and terror for those simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the Motel, cop and baby-faced bigot Krauss (Will Poulter) starts to systematically strip away the humanity of the residents, using everything from intimidation, violence and mind-games to find the lethal weapon that doesn't exist. Flanked by Ben O'Toole and Jack Reynor, Poulter is magnificent, digging deep to somehow find a shred of humanity in a character so inherently evil. As is Boyega, who manages to hit you with a gut-punch during the final act as the seriousness of the situation - and his role in it - suddenly overwhelms him. The film goes on to detail the immediate aftermath and the subsequent trial of the three police officers, bringing in an unnerving slimy John Krasinski as the defence. At just shy of two and a half hours, Detroit feels overlong despite Bigelow's best efforts to keep the film moving at a pace. The final half hour could have been wrapped up in text, but it does pay testament to the survivors, some of whom were left with mental scars from which they would never fully recover. Detroit's real power stems from the harrowing, maddening centrepiece at the Algiers, a terrible abuse of power not terribly different from some of the news stories we still hear about today.


Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Ben O'Toole, Jack Reynor, Anthony Mackie, John Krasinski
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #961: 'The Revenant' (2015)

Although it took home the Best Picture gong last year and I personally found it an immersing and wonderfully bizarre experience, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was far from the year's most satisfying movie. Still, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu demonstrated enough desire to take the movie-going experience to the next level (with unfathomably long takes masterminded by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) to have me excited about his next project, and the revelation that it was to be set in 1820's America around the legendary story of Hugh Glass had me foaming at the gills. While The Revenant is not the masterpiece I was hoping for, it is a gruelling, brutal and frequently breathtaking tale of survival.

Glass's story has been altered to fit a more conventional narrative, and the opening scenes introduce us, Terrence Malick-style, to his Pawnee wife (Grace Dove) and son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), in flashback. These floaty, dream-like moments quickly give way to the harshness of the Louisiana wilderness where Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his son are working as part of a fur-trapper party under the command of Captain Henry (Domhnall Glesson). While Glass hunts for pelts, the rest of the party are set upon by hostile Arikara Indians, who slaughter a third of the men before the ragged group, with Glass, escape down river. This opening scene, as teased in the trailer, is the film's Omaha Beach, and is captured by Lubezki's never-still camera, constantly swirling from one act of brutality to the next.

We jump on the back of the horse and off again, follow men as they kill and then be killed, under water and onto a boat, and then we are left to catch our breath. Combined with the eerie score, it makes for a delirious and awe-aspiring set-piece. As the group decide just how to get back to camp with their lives, they touch land again where Glass is set upon by a grizzly bear, in what is surely cinema's most convincing moment of man vs. nature. The attack has been compared to a rape, and as Glass screams for his life while being brutally and helplessly torn apart by the giant beast, it's hard to avoid the comparison. Found by his group, he is left in the care of the unhinged John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and youngster Jim Bridger (Will Pouler). Betrayed and left for dead, Glass must drag his broken body across 200 miles of wilderness for revenge.

The famously difficult shoot, in which the crew were given the task of shooting chronologically on location using natural lighting, all in the harshest of environments, certainly benefits the film. The exhaustion is etched on the character's faces, with DiCaprio in particular carrying the film on his shredded back as he sucks marrow from a long-dead animal carcass and snuggles up inside the body of a horse for warmth. The film doesn't so much celebrate the strength of human will when faced with impossible odds, but marvel at how much the human body can withstand in the most unwelcome of locations. Through Lubezki's lens, the wilderness has never been a more fearsome foe, but also rarely quite as beautiful. Both DiCaprio and Lubezki are surely odds on favourites come Oscar time - the former a talent deserving of Academy recognition and the latter looking for his third triumph in as many years.

However, the film is not without its flaws. The tweeks to Glass's real-life story (or what is known of it) mean that Inarritu has opted for a more conventional revenge flick that side-steps any deeper questions that may arise about America's dark history, and fails to add any real dimension to the other races caught up in the action. The Arikara's certainly have a reason for their relentless pursuit, but no explanation is given to why this group is so hostile. The same can be said for the team of French trappers, who appear briefly and serve as little more than a plot device. Near the end of its 150 minute running time, it ponders the purpose of revenge like a thousand movies before it but fails to say anything new. Yet, while it arguably fails thematically, The Revenant is at its best when its showing off, delivering a couple of key set-pieces that throw you head-first into the mayhem like nothing else I've seen, backed by impressive performances by DiCaprio and a mumbling Hardy.


Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie