Detroit * * * *

  There is an excellent animated section at the beginning of Detroit which tells of the mass movement of black citizens from the southern to the northern states of America throughout the twentieth century.  Because of it’s intense manufacturing Detroit attracted many black families.   But they were restricted in their ability to advance and ghettos quickly developed. Ghettos watched over by the wrong kind of police.

Not exactly model policing.

         From the outset of this film you can smell the slow burn when peaceful social gatherings are busted up by the cops, for who knows what reason. (You can also dig the Motown music. Could you really make a film on Detroit without acknowledging it’s music?Detroit has a B story of an upcoming Motown group - one of the members get’s caught up in the action).

          We cannot be sure what actually happened in the Algiers Motel, on the night of July 25 1967. However, believing there was a sniper in the motel the cops burst in, killing their first innocent victim the moment they were through the door. People were then rounded up in the hallway to be “questioned” and this is where we descend into madness….

           At this point of the film my reaction was rather similar to I Daniel Blake, where extreme dramatic licence is taken to tell a story. An interrogation of violence and sadism commences. No relief comes, and perhaps that is Bigelow’s intention:  A microcosm of the black man's world at that time.  There is no one to cover for you, to help you, to rescue you.

            Is this a reflection of the policing in Detroit at the time, or the conduct of a couple of rogue cops, no less criminal than the worst of the people they arrest?  Over empowered men filled with hate for black people, women, and anybody else who doesn’t fit in with their personal interpretation of how the world should be (never mind the rights of the individual).

          Watching Detroit I was angry (which is just what the filmmakers wanted I suppose.) I was hoping for a hero to turn the situation around; but despite my indignation I can’t say I felt that much tension, mainly because the cops were so bad nothing they did surprised me. Hitting, torturing, insulting, humiliating, violating, whatever their next move was I was thinking, “Yep, that’d be right coming from these guys”.

        What we do know for sure is that the court case that followed was a sham and this is probably the unfortunate thing about Detroit the movie. Give a project to Kathryn Bigelow and she is going to give us unbelievable tension, people on the edge as both victims and perpetrators, bug-eyed, sweating, crying, begging and near crazy with fear. When Kathryn tells a story death is on the doorstep. What Bigelow does she does well; but is that overlooking the greater story?  

         Although Detroit takes us to court, we can't be sure of the full proceeding. We are given hints but they are cursory. Perhaps a slower more considered film which asks how could it be that the court system let them down so badly?

        Prejudice shown by a couple of sadistic rogue cops is to be expected - not pretty to watch but not surprising either.  Willful prejudice shown by the courts of America is something even more frightening.