Detroit (2017)

Film: Detroit (2017)
Stars: John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, John Krasinski, Anthony Mackie
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Rankiing: 2/5 stars

The films of Kathryn Bigelow have always been a slow burn for me.  Upon seeing both The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty I had little time for them, but as the movies grew in my mind the films themselves improved in my memory, anchored by two very strong lead performances and a moral ambiguity that I really enjoyed.  As a result, though I'm behind on a number of reviews, I considered it something of a blessing that I had to percolate on Detroit for a bit, as I wondered if my initial dislike of the picture would start to wear off, but it hasn't.  Detroit is not in the same class as Bigelow's other two movies, a failed attempt at trying to deal with an unforgivable chapter in our nation's history, hurt principally by a detached script and underwhelming performances.

(Spoilers Ahead...though this is a real story, so you know, you should know what happens) The film takes place in the heart of the 12th Street Riots, one of the deadliest and most disturbing chapters in American history (resulting in over 2000 arrests and 43 deaths, it was the largest event of its kind until the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles).  The movie is centered around real-life figures, similar to Zero Dark Thirty, but like that film most of the people in this film are not well-known in real life (in fact, the only person who would become famous outside this incident featured in the picture is a young Rep. John Conyers).  The movie principally focuses on a long interrogation scene between a racist young officer Philip Krauss (Poulter), who is intent on finding who fired a gun into the night (it was, in fact, a starter pistol so the officers weren't in any danger, but they assume someone in the house fired at them), and they continue to berate, terrify, and illegally intimidate a house filled with a number of young black men and two white women, eventually resulting in the deaths of three people whom they kill at point-blank range.

The film, in comparison to the injustice that has been shown in relation to the deaths of African-Americans like Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and Michael Brown, is jarring in its immediacy.  This is not, as much as we'd want to believe it, a dusty chapter of American history, but instead something immediate and a necessary discussion.  The Black Lives Matter movement is an important one in the United States, and considering the continued injustice of some of the jury verdicts that have taken place in recent years, Detroit could have been a major milestone, the sort of rarity where art and conversation combine into a meaningful dialogue, the way that say, Milk or In the Heat of the Night managed to mirror political discourse at the time.

The problem here is that while Detroit's subject is important, the film itself is not particularly good.  Bigelow's editing is far too fat, with the movie dragging on in spots where some trimming up would have done us some good (the arrest scene of John Boyega's Dismukes, for example, is like five minutes when it could have been a thirty second shot), and the script is clunky, frequently backtracking or repeatedly underlining points that have already been made.  Bigelow's usual benefit is utilizing her actors with sparse dialogue and letting the audience understand her message without making it expository, but here she seems unsure of herself as a director and wants to make sure we know, consistently, what a heinous person Dismukes is, for example.  Combined with a series of acting that is very all-over-the-place (Anthony Mackie in a limited role and Algee Smith as an aspiring singer are the standouts, but the rest are too wooden and unknowable).  John Boyega and Will Poulter, both getting their first major lead roles after floating in the sidelines of major films for a couple of years, don't show any sense of understanding of their characters.  I left only knowing what was on the page-they added no kind of backstory or insight into what these men were like when they aren't onscreen.  It's a pity that such an important chapter in American history gets cooked into a hammy picture, but a moment of clarity for me like Bigelow's last pictures never really arrived.  Detroit just isn't very good.

Those are my thoughts on this late-summer film, one that seemed to have been part of the poor Box Office of August, but what about yours?  Do you agree that this is the least of Bigelow's "major director" period of pictures, or does the film have its defenders?  Who do you think was best (and worst) in show?  Share your comments below!