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| Shotgun to the face or see this movie again? Shotgun please |
I was looking forward to seeing MOTOR CITY. I was intrigued by the idea of a film driven by needle drops. When I finally saw it I was extremely disappointed.
The plot of the film has an ex-con being set up by a crime boss who wants his girl. The ex-con breaks out of prison to get revenge.
Told with almost almost no dialog, not because no one speaks, but because the director has music cover over everything, this is a film you just have to go with. You just have to watch the action and watch and pick up clues until something is spelled out. Unfortunately by the time we're told anything we've sorted it out already. What isn't songs you know, like The Chain by Fleetwood Mac or Lovely Day by Bill Withers or I Feel Love by Donna Summer, is a an electronic heavy one that was all the rage in the ealry 80's. I would have thought that the film would have been designed, like John Woo's SILENT NIGHT, to tell its story without dialog, while keeping all the background sounds that give a sense of life to a film, but no, music is everything so the dounds that help make a modern movie sound real and a live have been stripped out of a lot of the film.
The film uses lots of stylized shots and way way too much slow motion. This is not a film that wants to tell a (very very cliched) story but instead wants to look cool and be hip and happening in a prentious sort of way. Sadly, it never looks hip and happening because everything looks like bad 1970's TV cop show dress up cliche.
Yea, the action sequences are fine for what they are, but at the same time we really don't give a shit about anyone on screen because we never got to know them as characters. I saw Alan Ritchson as Reacher because it gave me something to hang on to.
The biggest problem is that the script, despite coming from the Black List, is terrible (then again most Black List films end up disappointing because of changes by the time they arrive as films). The plot requires plot turns that make zero sense, starting with our hero leaving his car unlocked with the windows open, in what appears to be the ghetto of Detroit - if he didn't do it they could steal the car and set him up. No information is given on anyone or anything until way after we should have been told. Not having a clue, our hero watches his car get stolen and then essentially returned and he doesn't think its weird. Or more to the point the film never lets us in on what he thinks because there is no dialog or rational action. Were they firguring that giving us a stupidly cliche script that they wouldn't have to give us characters because it was all cliche?
Why did anyone sign to do this? What was in the script that got lost?
Walking out of the theater I considered setting myself on fire lest I be forced to watch this film again.
I know the filmmakers can make good films- the director make the truly great OLD HENRY, I just want to know what happened? I'm hoping that this is purely a moment where all these great pieces got together and it just didn't work. I mean, it happens, right?
As it stands now MOTOR CITY was a physically painful viewing experience I wouldn't wish on my enemies.
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