Enthralling, powerful, and at times hard to watch

Rating: 8/10 (18 August 2017)

Detroit is a historical drama thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, based on true events during the Detroit riots of 1967. Knowing next to nothing about the infamous Algiers Motel incident, I was still excited to see it based solely on how intense and gripping the trailer was. It would be a very interesting movie even if the story was completely fictitious, but knowing everything actually occurred in one form or another really added an extra ounce of gravity to the experience. In fact, the script was pieced together using real-life testimonies and court records, and Bigelow even invited living people from the incident as consultants on set during filming to ensure accuracy. End result is a movie that is not only entertaining, but also relevant and keeps you cognizant of issues in the real world.
What I really like about Detroit is how it goes about its business in a very a matter of fact manner. Even though there are a lot of racist white characters in the movie, it certainly does not present the black individuals as completely innocent, which is heartening as reality is not always black or white, but instead shades of gray. The meat of the story is a hostage situation at the aforementioned motel, where three demonic white cops terrorize a group of people, trying to force a confession out of them for a crime they did not commit. The performances are all stellar, especially Will Poulter as the head of the racist cops and John Boyega as the security guard who witnesses the entire event. The acting in the film really helped ground the story in reality, making scenes of sudden violence all the more shocking.
The film does drag a little bit outside of the motel confrontation. It could have removed the historically contextual, but cinematically irrelevant back stories of the characters and just drop us right in the middle of the main conflict at Algiers. I feel it would have made the movie tighter and less bogged down if it sans the onus of attempting to cover the entire riot. Regardless, Detroit is an enthralling, powerful, and at times hard to watch drama thriller that really stays with you after viewing. Even without knowledge of history, it is still a very enjoyable film in its own right that deserves your time at least once.