Having become the first woman to win the Oscar for best director with The Hurt Locker in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the focus of controversy when 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty was accused of somehow endorsing the use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden (Naomi Wolf ludicrously compared Bigelow to Leni Riefenstahl). Torture rears its ugly head again in Detroit, but this time in a context that leaves no room for misinterpretation. Revisiting a shocking “incident” that took place amid five days of rioting in the summer of 1967, Detroit is a provocative period piece made all the more alarming by its stark contemporary relevance. More than 40 people died during the so-called “Detroit rebellion”, most of them African Americans, many shot by the police or national guardsmen. In attempting to unpack “the anatomy of an uprising”, Bigelow focuses in on a harrowing tragedy that has become emblematic of the racial tensions still haunting the US.
Detroit opens with a contextualising history lesson, animating Jacob Lawrence’s vivid paintings of the “great migration” to recount the movement of African Americans from the rural south toward the industrialised north and midwest. Here, poverty-ridden urban ghettos offer a life where equality is “an illusion” and change is “inevitable”. When police raid a Detroit speakeasy in July 1967, civil unrest erupts, with state troopers and guardsmen sent into “no man’s land” to quell protesters and looters alike. “This is like fuckin’ ’Nam,” says Will Poulter’s PhilipKrauss, a fictionalised character (one of several) described by screenwriter Mark Boal as “inspired by the actions and recorded deeds of a Detroit policeman” who takes lethal pot-shots at looters under the pretext of protecting the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, at the downtown Fox theatre, the disturbances rob rising stars the Dramatics of their moment in the spotlight, leaving singer Cleveland Larry Reed, played by Algee Smith, to perform a cappella to an empty auditorium – a spine-tingling moment. But it’s when Krauss and his uniformed henchmen descend upon an annex of the Algiers motel, where Reed and Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) have sought safe haven, that Detroit shifts into something resembling a horror movie – a genre last explored by Bigelow in her vampire-western Near Dark. Searching for an alleged sniper, and inflamed by the discovery of two white girls whom Vietnam veteran Robert Greene (Anthony Mackie) is accused of pimping, these rogue cops embark upon a brutal “death game” – a violent interrogation involving murderous playacting which soon becomes a nightmarish reality.
Paul Greengrass’s regular cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who brought such urgent verisimilitude to Bigelow and Boal’s The Hurt Locker, once again lends a documentarian’s eye to the drama, using vintage lenses to capture multi-angle digital footage (largely shot around Boston), which interweaves seamlessly with archive material. Just as Point Break plunged its audience into breakneck chases and Strange Days toyed with virtual reality (a medium recently explored by Bigelow in the ivory-poachers documentary short The Protectors), so Detroit is an immersive experience which places the viewer at the heart of this unfolding chaos. It’s a sprawling, volatile melee of a movie, excellently edited by William Goldenberg and Harry Yoon, who jostle their way through a crowd of stories to focus in on one claustrophobic flashpoint.
Aiding that focus is an ensemble cast at the top of their game. British up-and-comer John Boyega (who shone in Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is brilliant as Melvin Dismukes, the security guard who is caught between his race and his uniform as he attempts to mediate between brutal police and tortured suspects, earning disdain and distrust from both sides. There’s something of the young Denzel Washington in Boyega’s physicality – the ability to convey both strength and vulnerability through the tiniest facial gestures. Algee Smith is terrific too, perfectly capturing the traumatising loss of innocence that his character undergoes. You can almost hear the sweet music draining from his soul, drowned out by discord and disharmony. As for Will Poulter (another Brit making international waves), he is perfectly cast as Krauss, whose malevolence lurks beneath an innocent facade. A scene in which Krauss forces his petrified prisoners to pray reminded me of the absurdist, bullying bigotry conveyed with such force by Gene Hackman in The French Connection.
Crucially, despite the efficiently evoked period setting (plaudits to production designer Jeremy Hindle) there’s nothing distant about Detroit. As a broad-canvas work that shifts from social realism to courtroom drama via crime thriller, musical fantasy and social chiller, it confirms Bigelow as a dextrous master of her craft. As a wake-up call to a nation, it is tense, tough and terrifyingly timely.
