Detroit

Based on true events, Detroit transpires during the infamous title riots of the late 1960s and follows several characters as they attempt to emerge from the situation with their very lives intact. Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow delivers an almost excessively uneven endeavor that boasts a somewhat promising opening stretch, as the director, working from a script by Mark Boal, delivers a first act that effectively captures the chaos and confusion inherent in such a scenario – with the intriguing atmosphere heightened by a sprawling approach that’s reflected most keenly in the narrative’s myriad of disparate characters (including Will Poulter’s corrupt cop and John Boyega’s earnest security guard). It’s an ambitious start that’s slowly-but-surely diminished by Boal’s unfocused, padded-out screenplay, with, especially, the filmed-play vibe of the movie’s often interminable second act playing an instrumental role in Detroit‘s palpable downfall. (Boal delivers a midsection that seems to concern itself entirely with characters being tormented by dirty police officers, with this section’s one-note feel certainly paving the way for a fairly interminable second half that rarely packs the visceral, emotional punch Bigelow is striving for.) The movie’s failure is ultimately cemented by an almost entirely disastrous closing section, which revolves around the trial stemming from the aforementioned evil-cops storyline, and it’s difficult, in the end, not to wonder what Bigelow and Boal were hoping to accomplish with this unfocused, overlong misfire.

** out of ****