Detroit is a film takes its time, sets its scene well. Its glossy and powerful when it wants to be and it's quiet and speaks for itself when it needs to.

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2020)

It's a surprisingly impactful and energetic powderkeg of a film.
There's something great about the sets and locations, with their dirty, ugly, boring authenticity. Tied to this is the great minor cast, with the yellow teeth, and the plain faces; the sort of ordinariness of them all, that goes along with Boal's elegantly simple script where it feels anything can happen at any time. Boyega is dynamite, his raw, bare constraint as an actor and his character's struggles moving me to tears throughout.
Bigelow's camera is always motivated so despite the film's length, you look away and you're likely to miss something. The disconnect and then sudden connection between stories has a classic movie feel, more than any Bigelow, Detroit is an underrated masterclass of editing.
Detroit is a great film, but be warned, it's a horror, a horror where truth is even more horrifying than fiction and the trauma is etched on the faces of all involved, and maybe even on the soul of America. And this was only 1967.