Detroit

It seems premature to start talking up potential Oscar winners for next year but Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit is bound to be in the running for the prestigious prize.

Bigelow is not a Director to do things by halves, picking weighty political subjects and taking her time to unspool and dissect the background, action and resolution to these stories that may only be known to the casual viewer as news headlines.

Her documentarian lens and eye for a set piece makes you live through the ordeals, something which elevated her previous films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, but which makes her latest: Detroit, particularly powerful.

You’ll know by now that this film follows the events of the Detroit riots in the 60’s, a dark time for America and, abhorrently, a lesson that doesn’t seem to have been learnt. Rather than just a historical document, this film serves as a warning and a lesson to contemporary Americans and the type of film which encourages political debate.

The film is told, roughly, in three segments serving as three set pieces. We start with the proverbial match strike of the riots; the police brutally shutting down an illegal after-hours party by arresting the citizens involved.

The scale of this scene is incredible, it feels real, enhanced by Bigelow’s occasional use of real documentary footage interspersed with the action.

It’s the middle sector which is the most harrowing but, equally, the most astounding piece of film-making here. An hour or so told in real time, starting with the closest thing we have to a lead ‘hero’ character; Algee Smith’s Larry (fantastic and awards-worthy) checking into the infamous Algiers Motel, meeting some of the guests and becoming a victim of a police raid when a starter’s pistol is assumed to be a sniper in the building.

The police storm the hotel and subject the guests to a brutal interrogation. Once again, Bigelow’s tight, constantly moving camera puts you in the midst of the scene. It’s visceral, powerful, horrifying and moving. An experience which will leave you gripping your seat.

The third act moves into the aftermath of these events and the trial, and non-guilty verdict from the all-white jury, of the policeman involved in these murders and assault. It moves more into courtroom drama here and the pacing slows somewhat, but serves as an unhappy resolution to the story.

Performances are incredible all round. The aforementioned Smith and the ever-reliable John Boyega (not quite as heavily involved as the promotional material makes out) but, perhaps most impressively, Will Poulter, already breaking out of his comedy-actor mould from performances in The Revenant and The Maze Runner but truly ground-breaking here; a truly monstrous creation.

A thought-provoking, tense piece of cinema. Horrifyingly prescient in these troubling times.

5 stars *****