"Detroit" is Haunting and Still Relevant

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2017)

The complication about making films where we as American's show our mistreatment of black people within our own country is that too often these are the few times we see a mostly group of people of color in Hollywood films. As these films have become more financially successful, we have been able to expose the world to lesser known stories (for example Hidden Figures and this film Detroit).
Detroit takes place in 1967 during the midst of the riots after a black owned Blind Pig bar where patrons were kicked out due to lack of liquor license and eventually leads to the towns people rioting and destroying the nearby businesses, even with tags of "Soul Brother" as a way to try to protect their black owned business. However, most of the film centers around the several young men and 2 women staying in the Algiers Motel as Carl Cooper had a starter pistol and shot in the air, as police mistaken it for a sniper, and begin to surround the Algiers and harass and intimidate the guests beyond recovery.
What the director Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) is create a consistent tension when seeing the scene in the motel play out, and lets the viewer view helplessly as they see the psychological harassment these young people faced against police and even marshals not even stepping in. The acting is very solid across the board, particularly Algee Smith (Ralph Tresvant in The New Edition Story) and Will Pouter (We're the Millers & Maze Runner) as a racist cop that Will performs almost too hauntingly well and could argue a Best Supporting Actor award for his performance.
The film also includes Jacob Lawrence's Migration series, a 60 panel epic from the 1940's in a 3D esque animated way to explain to the audience how things got to where they area, however, I don't feel stylistically it was the right case for this kind of film narratively. The Jason Bourne-style shaky cam gets VERY jarring at times and hard to digest given there is very few moments when the cameras still, even in the quiet developmental periods. Also there's a scene early on involving Will's character with a decision he makes and how the characters handle his discipline that feels like a glaring flaw of how he could be allowed to progress in the story without giving too much away.
Detroit is not a easy film to watch, nor does it desire to be. While it can serve for a good introduction for people who never heard of the riots, the film was better titled Algiers Motel as the riots is more of the backdrop and less of a history lesson.