Apocalypse Now in Detroit

Rating: 10/10 (30 March 2019)

It's a nazi prison guard film about race relations? It comes off sensationalist to the point of parody. I was going with it until they let the 'already murdered a guy' cop lead the charge for the second killing. Then he becomes this vile and evil caricature while everyone including military personnel just stand around letting this teenager go on a power trip. I have far more faith in the military and police and don't believe a thing on screen. I suspect they wanted Bigelow's war film background but with an 'in Detroit' hook, and all her attention to detail, cinematic mastery of space, image, and immersion, is used in full effect to terrorize the audience. She is a director's director, and one of the finest we have; some may not know how difficult and how much attention such a work would require to pull off so effortlessly. You could say Detroit presents a distortion of the cinema gift, a masterful thriller and film craft used to ensure its political message. The film presents it as a true story, and so it plays almost as if the Nazi war criminals were let off after Nuremberg, it's really enraging stuff. Then you understand why they preceded that with the most evil rendition of events. Flashes of Boyega's expressions of conscience and humanity resonate the most. The film is extreme in tone, hopeless, the villains win and you feel awful by the end of it, but I'm mixed on it, I admire Bigelow's great power of filmmaking, but I question its authenticity and tone.