There is a disclaimer at the end of “Detroit,” Kathryn Bigelow’s latest look back at our recent history. Before the final credits roll a title card reads something to the effect that the details of the bloody Algiers Motel Incident, the most infamous episode of the Detroit riots of the summer of 1967, were pieced together from available sources and eye witness accounts.
It reminds us that what we have just seen is an interpretation of history and not a strict, unequivocal statement of fact. The title card may be a reaction to the backlash that followed Bigelow last film “Zero Dark Thirty.” She called that film, a look at the decade long hunt for Osama bin Laden, a “reported film,” suggesting it existed somewhere in the murky middle between drama and documentary. Despite her claim the film drew fire from critics (including the CIA) who felt it exaggerated the enhanced interrogation techniques allegedly used in the search for Bin Laden.
Her new film is every bit as provocative but whereas “Zero Dark Thirty” felt of its time, “Detroit,” despite its 1967 setting, feels ripped from the headlines. It uses historical fact and dramatization as an urgent plea for further study and conversation into the systemic racism that enabled Detroit police to murder three young African American men and why so little has changed in the intervening years.
The film begins with a police raid of an unlicensed nightclub filled with African American men and women enjoying a drink, some music and each other’s company. Manhandling men and women alike the raid attracts the attention of the entire neighbourhood. As club goers are forced into paddy wagons for the crime of congregating and having a drink, cries of “You can’t do that,” erupt into rage and the frustrated shouts change to “Burn it down.” A riot breaks out leading to looting, curfews and mass arrests.
The story splinters to introduce Philip Krauss (Will Poulter), a racist trigger-happy Detroit cop who justifies gunning down a man who stole a bag of groceries because, “They’re destroying the city.”
Nearby are Larry Cleveland Reed (Algee Smith) and Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), a wannabe Motown singer and his best friend respectively. When Larry’s big debut at the Fox Theatre is scuttled because of the riot outside the theatre’s doors he Fred head to the Algiers, a nearby hotel, “until all this slows down.”
The laid back vibe at the Algiers seems a million miles away from the violence on the street, which by this point has seen 3200 people arrested and blocks of Detroit burned to the ground. Larry and Fred meet some girls (Hannah Murray and Kaitlyn Dever), listen to John Coltrane and feel safe until another resident, Carl Cooper (Jason Mitchell), shoots a starter’s pistol out the window. “We should teach those pigs a lesson,” he says. The police below, including Krauss, think a sniper is shooting at them and invade the building, guns drawn. By the time their “investigation” is done three young African-America men lay dead, shot at close range.
The lone uniformed voice of reason comes from Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a security guard in a grocery store down the street from the Algiers who tries his best to prevent bloodshed.
“Detroit” is an uncomfortable, gruelling watch. The physical intimidation, racially based violence, murders utilized against Reed, Temple and others as they plead innocence, is sickening. “I will kill you one by one until I find out what’s happening here,” says Krauss. Using psychological games and hard-core interrogation tactics he (and a handful of others) terrorizes his suspects and it is gut wrenching. Bigelow has a historical POV setting up the story and in the subsequent court case but her handling of the interrogation sequences is pure psychological horror. Claustrophobic and violent, it is as compelling as it is abhorrent.
Bigelow uses archival footage and stills to set the stage but it is a combo of her kinetic, muscular filmmaking and strong performances that make an impression. Boyega channels a young Denzel Washington, radiating decency while Poulter is a snarling ogre who revels in the powerlessness and dehumanization of his victims. As a paratrooper recently returned from Vietnam Anthony Mackie is a stoic presence amid the chaos.
Best of the bunch is Algee Smith as the young singer whose dreams are crushed when the Fox Theatre is evacuated just before his debut. While the dirty cops assert that “one bad minute shouldn’t define their lives,” it is through Smith’s performance that the long term effects of the Algiers event are the most tangible. The repercussions of that vicious, lawless night echo throughout his psyche, changing him forever.
The story in “Detroit” is fifty years old but the names of Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown Jr., Ezell Ford, Dante Parker or any number of others who have been killed at the hands of the police in recent times, echo throughout.
Richard and CP24 anchor Nneka Elliott talk about Michael Bay’s latest, the action film “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” a buddy cop flick called “Ride Along 2” starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart and the Edsel of the animation world, “Norm of the North.”
Richard and “Canada AM” host Marci Ien talk about the Michael Bay action film “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” the buddy cop flick “Ride Along 2” with Ice Cube and Kevin Hart and a contender for worst film of the year, “Norm of the North.”
Making a war movie is hard work with long hours and tough conditions. According to 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi star Pablo Schreiber making a war movie with Michael Bay is extra difficult.
“Everyone who has worked with Michael Bay has told me the set can be a challenging place to work,” he says of the Transformers director. “I got all these stories to prepare but ultimately nothing anybody says can prepare you for that experience. He works faster than any director working. We do about 75 set ups a day, which is massive especially when each of them is like its own action sequence. It’s an insane amount of work. He demands a lot from you. It’s very necessary that you come prepared, that you are ready to perform any piece of the movie at any given time.”
The Canadian born actor and winner of the We Love to Hate You Award at the 2014 Young Hollywood Awards for his work as George “Pornstache” Mendez on Orange Is the New Black, says Bay took him by surprise during the 2015 shoot in Malta.
“There’s a scene at the end where a convoy is rolling in and we don’t know if they are friendly or bad,” he says, “and it is one of the emotional peaks of the movie. For me it was a scene I had checked off as an actor as one I had to be ready and prepared for. Then he shot it a week before we were supposed to shoot it. I had about five minutes to prepare. He said, ‘Let’s go on the roof and get that last sequence.’ He started setting up cranes. To be ready at any moment for whatever he’s going to throw at you is very important. As actors all six of us ended leaving there feeling like if we had gotten through that experience we could deal with anything.”
When I ask if the chaotic set conditions were Bay’s way of not so subtly exposing his actors to the same kind of unpredictable situations their characters were dealing with, he laughed.
“I’m not sure how much forethought was put into that vibe, but it was definitely effective and it works. As actors we were constantly disoriented and didn’t quite know where we were and didn’t know where we were going to be on any given day.”
Schreiber plays Kris “Tanto” Paronto, a former U.S. Army Ranger who was one of six CIA security contractors working in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 when when well-armed Libyan militants—using weapons pilfered from former Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi’s abandoned arsenals—invaded the American embassy. Their attempt to rescue ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Foreign Service Information officer Sean Smith led to a harrowing thirteen-hour battle.
The thirty-seven year old actor met Tanto and says he felt a great responsibility in playing a real person who was on set and would eventually see the film but adds that director Bay tried to keep show the humanity of the story’s heroes.
“Michael Bay made this movie and he normally make these big extravaganzas but this is not a superhero movie,” he says. “This is a movie about very, very real human beings who behaved extraordinarily under the most difficult circumstances.”
The word subtle is never used in reference to Michael Bay. On film the “Transformers” filmmaker has never left a bullet unfired or ever met a building he didn’t want to blow up. His films are frenetic odes to carnage and his latest one, “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” takes a page out of the recent past and gives it the Bay Bias.
Based on the 2013 nonfiction book “13 Hours” by Mitchell Zuckoff, the bulk of the film takes place on the eleventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Rone Woods (James Badge Dale), Jack Da Silva (John Krasinski), Oz Geist (Max Martini), Bub Doherty (Toby Stephens), Tanto Paronto (Pablo Schreiber) and Boon (David Denman) are tough guys with 1000 yards stares. They are former Navy SEALS, Marine Force Recon and Army Special Forces now working as CIA security contractors in in Benghazi, Libya in a top-secret facility so undercover it doesn’t officially exist.
The city is a hellhole known as the most violent place on earth. When well-armed Libyan militants—using weapons pilfered from former Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi’s abandoned arsenals—invade the American embassy the contractors, located about a mile away from the attack, want to help but are ordered to stand down by their on-site CIA chief. As the fighting intensifies they spring into action—“Things change fast in Benghazi,” they snarl.—launching a rescue mission for ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Foreign Service Information officer Sean Smith.
There’s more—things blow up and bullets fly—and it is public record, but there will be no spoilers here.
“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” is a fast and furious look at an event the ripples of which are still being felt today, but this is a Michael Bay movie so it is unburdened by the weight of controversy. Instead the politics are downplayed—there is no mention of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Obama—and it is presented as an action film.
On that level it works. Bay knows how to build tension and entertain the eye. He indulges his artier side with some beautifully composed photography and throws in some interesting details to bring the action alive. For instance, the city is such a chaotic place the locals barely notice the mounting violence as they watch soccer as buildings explode just down the block. “Just another Tuesday night in Benghazi,” says Da Silva.
Unfortunately Bay is so in love with his images he drops the ball on the story. This is a tale of men who stepped up and put their lives on the line despite bureaucratic interference. The contractors should be complex characters, balancing their stateside lives with their training as warriors and while the movie tries to explore that divide, it does so in the most Michael Bay way as possible. Instead of investigating the things that drive them we are treated to an sketchy subplot regarding Da Silva’s family that sheds little light on how his job affects his wife and daughters or vice versa. No amount of scenes showing these men Skyping with their families or lovingly gazing at photos of their babies will do enough to humanize them when they are so underwritten. Bay emphasizes the action in Benghazi, but choses to ignore the emotional side except in the most superficial of ways.
“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” could have been a fascinating and timely study of men juggling their jobs with complicated families lives but instead it is just another Michael Bay movie.
Sadie (Mandy Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski) are young, good-looking and in love. Before they tie the knot Sadie insists that they submit to a marriage preparation course taught by Reverend Frank (Robin Williams). Trouble is the lessons seem to be designed to drive them further apart rather than bring them together. Will they survive Rev. Frank’s teachings and walk down the aisle or will Sadie get cold feet?
I think you already know the answer and that’s the problem with License to Wed. It is the very definition of banal, formulaic romantic comedy and it is one of the worst movies of the year, and that’s saying something in a year that gave us The Hills Have Eyes 2, Wild Hogs and The Reaping.
I don’t even know where to begin describing what’s wrong here, but I’ll give it a go. Firstly someone has to tell Robin Williams to stop. Just stop making every movie that comes down the pike. Please take the time to read the scripts before agreeing to show up on set and grab the paycheck. He makes too many movies, and hasn’t been funny on film for a very long time.
His Rev. Frank is an obsessive control freak disguised as a care giver who should be arrested and thrown in jail, not entrusted with the welfare of young people. Fine. It’s a comedic premise gone wrong. I can accept that. What I can’t accept is how unfunny the movie, and Robin Williams is. The people writing the movie and particularly Rev. Frank’s dialogue seem to have simply swallowed a Henny Youngman joke book, regurgitating gags that we’ve seen and heard many times before and never need to see or hear again.
John Krasinski, so funny as Jim on The Office, and Mandy Moore are both wasted in forgettable, bland leading roles. The only high point is the inclusion of several of Krasinski’s Office cast mates in small supporting roles. As a snotty jewelry store clerk, a nagging wife and overweight belly dancer they inject a small dose of much needed humor to the story, but it’s not enough to rescue this turkey.
License to Wed is wrongheaded on many levels—it’s a silly look at married life, the characters are immature and bland—but it’s biggest sin is that it simply isn’t funny.
Promised Land is one of those message movies you know is going to end with a BIG SPEECH, and you just hope it’s an entertaining ride until the final oration. In this case I think the movie let its sense of earnestness overpower the entertainment fact. It’s good, likeable actors in a story that might have been better served in documentary form, rather than the contrived drama presented here.
Matt Damon (who also co-wrote the script with co-star John Krasinski) stars as Steve Butler, a charming salesman sent to a small Pennsylvania farming community to lease land for a giant natural gas company’s fracking project. For him it’s a personal crusade; he believes he’s transforming the lives of the cash-strapped farmers. For his partner Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) it’s a job that simply keeps her away from her young son. Complicating matters is Dustin Noble (Krasinski), an environmental activist who, as his last name might imply, comes to town to raise the alarm about the real cost of Steve and Sue’s business offer.
An issue movie with a point of view is nothing new. But this one really wears its sleeve on its sleeve. It’s a Davey and Goliath story that relies on the charm and likability of its cast to sell the idea that fracking is bad, and the corporations who dupe cash strapped farmers into leasing their land are evil.
Getting people to understand the point of the movie, however, sucks a great deal of the drama away. The scenes describing the harmful effects of fracking are clunky. It’s hard to make talk of water table pollution dramatic, and while “Promised Land” makes an attempt by giving much of the heavy lifting to Hal Holbrook, the grand old man of the cast, it’s still only as dramatic as a high school science class lecture.
The movie gets many of the details right—it’s set in a town where the general store is called Rob’s Guns, Groceries, Guitars and Gas and people wear either “flannel or camo”—and its heart is certainly in the right place but unlike movies like “Erin Brockovich” which managed to mix message and medium, “Promised Land” is crushed under the weight of its own heavy hand.
Like the title suggests, ” Big Miracle” is a big movie with big stars like Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, big ideas–culture clashes, network news parodies–big running time–almost two hours–but most of all it has a big heart.
Krasinski plays Adam Carlson an ambitious television reporter paying his dues in Alaska. When he uncovers a story about three whales trapped beneath the ice in the remote community of Barrow the story goes national, attracting the attention of everyone from his ex girlfriend, a Greenpeace activist played by Drew Barrymore to an oil baron (Ted Danson) to the American public and even Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev (Favorite line in the movie? “Gorby, it’s Ronnie!”).
“Big Miracle” has many story threads running throughout. The plight of he whales is the starting int for the film to examine the culture of the north, the ruthlessness of the news business, Cold War co-operation between the US and Russia, the oil business and there’s even a love story thrown in for good measure.
This many ideas shouldn’t really work, but somehow the film’s earnestness helps everything gel. No great answers are provided and most everything is painted in broad family friendly strokes, but like I said in the intro, the film has heart and in this case that goes a long way.
Having said that it also has to be noted that the whale puppets used throughout are smarter and have more soul than many of the human characters. Barrymore in particular seems like hysterical stereotype than effective activist but it’s worth getting past her histrionics to catch a glimpse of a certain Alaskan celebrity who makes a brief, unexpected cameo near the end.
There is a disclaimer at the end of “Detroit,” Kathryn Bigelow’s latest look back at our recent history. Before the final credits roll a title card reads something to the effect that the details of the bloody Algiers Motel Incident, the most infamous episode of the Detroit riots of the summer of 1967, were pieced together from available sources and eye witness accounts.
