Much like the road to hell, most bad movies are made with good intentions. The hope is that was the case with Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit.”
The film is being touted as “the true story” of a tragic sidebar within the Detroit riots of the 1960s. One has to sit through the entire movie to learn that’s not “exactly” the case. But the fictionalization being promoted as fact is the least of the problems for the film. There is a dangerous lack of context as to the full scale of elements that pushed the black community to the point of unrest, a failure to humanize those who suffered through the experience and a spin on the moment in history that perpetuates the myth that the black community makes itself a target of police.
Considering the current and ongoing narrative surrounding the relationship between law enforcement and people of color, “Detroit” just might have the opposite reaction of what was surely Bigelow’s point of the film – to shed light on a little known stain of injustice that was overshadowed by the riots.
The opening uses images from painter Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series” to give a brief pictorial with a bit of text of the story of black people coming up north for opportunities and escape from oppression. This introduction also states that as black people came to neighborhoods, the white people left – which starved the neighborhoods of resources. The opening implies that white flight resulted in Detroit – and other urban areas across the nation – becoming little more than overcrowded ghettos riddled with crime and nefarious activities. The systems in place that prevented African Americans from achieving the so-called American Dream are absolved of any responsibility.
Bigelow starts the series of events that ultimately lead to the tragedy the film sought to expose inside an illegal after hours joint in the summer of 1967. A black policeman facilitates a raid of the establishment. As the patrons are carted off by police, onlookers attack the officers with rocks and bottles. The situation almost instantly explodes into looting as a response to the police simply doing their job by making the arrests.
For the next hour of the film, unruly rioters are seen wreaking havoc on Detroit and ignoring law enforcement from the local, state and national level who are attempting to restore calm.
Looters are victimized because they defy order. Police are doing the best that they can, considering the stressful circumstances.
After pounding this into the brain of the viewer, they are finally introduced to African Americans as human beings who are attempting to navigate life in the midst of their city burning to the ground.
Shortly afterwards, the incidents of the Algiers Motel play out – which left three innocent victims dead and several others brutally beaten at the hands of city police.
One of the few things the film gets right is illustrating the terror of the incident and how a blind eye is often turned when it comes to police brutality against black citizens. The film also shows that injustice towards blacks don’t end with officers on the streets, but permeates throughout the entire criminal justice system.
The final of the sparing bright spots in “Detroit” are found in the performances.
John Boyega is believable as the security guard that takes it upon himself to aid law enforcement in their efforts – and who naively believes in the beginning that justice will prevail. Jacob Latimore and Algee Smith are compelling as two young men who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Will Poulter is effectively vicious as Officer Krauss.
At the film’s end, “Detroit” admits to taking the liberty of inserting fiction to fill in the blanks to complete the story – but the fictitious moments are glaringly obvious. The tragedy of the Algiers Motel didn’t need more drama for the sake of drama. But “Detroit” was in desperately longing for balance. In doing so, the film could have honored the memory of the lives lost and survivors of that particular moment in history, the lives were forever changed because of the riots – and the individuals who still suffer the generational curse of being criminalized because of the color of their skin.
“Detroit” opens in theatres nationwide on Friday, August 4. The film is rated R with a running time of 142 minutes.
