“Motor City” Review

“Motor City”, the throwback revenge thriller from director Potsy Ponciroli and screenwriter Chad St. John asks a curious question: what happens if we take a hyper-generic action story and strip away all of the requisite hyper-generic action dialogue? The resulting film, a virtually dialogue-free montage set to the greatest hits of the 1970s, is creatively ambitious and visually bold even as it still suffers from the same predictable story beats and underwritten characters commonplace in more conventional genre films.

Alan Ritchson stars as John Miller, a blue collar bruiser with a heart of gold in 1970s Detroit. On the day he proposes to the love of his life, Sophie (Shailene Woodley), Miller is arrested and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Turns out he was framed by Sophie’s ex named Reynolds (Ben Foster), a local drug lord with plenty of dirty cops on the payroll to help him get what he wants.

With Miller in prison, Sophie goes back to her ex and soon they are married. When Miller finds out, he determines to break out of prison with the help of some true ride-or-die friends and get revenge on everybody who wronged him.

Bringing this story to life largely devoid of dialogue is an admirable creative experiment, though the conceit works more naturally whenever the movie commits to its action set pieces and strains in the more quiet moments. Particularly in the second act, there are several scenes of characters sitting across from each other at a table, in which the viewer can feel the filmmaker struggling to justify why these characters wouldn’t use their words to communicate, consequently making the scenes feel forced and unnatural, breaking any immersion.

The struggles in the second act lead into a fantastic climax as the story commits fully to action sequences that don’t require any dialogue to deliver visceral thrills. One particular fight scene during a hellish elevator ride is a masterclass in closed-quarter choreography with gut-wrenching brutality.

By stripping away all dialogue yet keeping generic character types, we are unable to form emotional connections with any of the characters such that when people are bloodied or murdered, we feel nothing. Even without the hammy dialogue, the characters are still the one dimensional stock players to be expected in such a film, thus not demanding much from the individual performers. Yet despite these limitations with the writing and style, Ben Foster is delightfully scummy as a sleazy caricature of drug-addled excess, sweating through silk shirts and delighting in his cruelty.

In the lead role, Alan Ritchson continues bolstering his action star bonafides, serving as a hulked out Jason Statham even as he chooses more creatively interesting projects.

Despite its narrative shortcomings, “Motor City” is a fascinating curiosity worth admiring for its attempts to elevate a tried-and-true formula into something more distinct and challenging.

Motor City
Rated R for strong bloody violence, some grisly images, drug content, sexuality/nudity and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 43 minutes

Director Potsy Ponciroli
Writers Chad St. John
Stars Alan Ritchson, Ben Foster, Pablo Schreiber, Lionel Boyce, Shailene Woodley
Rating R
Running Time 103 Minutes
Genres Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller