Before the title card appears a minute in, a blood-soaked Alan Ritchson has already thrown a legless body off a building, caused an accident, and delivered a headshot. “Motor City” scores points for honesty, it delivers precisely what it says on the tin—a glorious, throw-back, 70s actioner. Cue the squibs, blood geysers, explosions and blood-curdling machismo. Director Potsy Ponciroli and writer Chad St. John’s innovation is to make “Motor City” a silent film, or more specifically, a wordless one. There’s no dialogue of note – though the immersive soundscape ensures you can hear every bone-snap and gun-discharge. This device liberates “Motor City” of the incurable scourge of modern actioners, the mind-meltingly inane dialogue and attempts at meaning. Ponciroli and Ritchson have taken the advice ‘Shut up and fight!’ to its logical conclusion and delivered a crowd-pleasing thriller. It’s marshmallows all the way, without any cereal to spoil the sugar high.
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Even at a modest 100 minutes, an action film couldn’t sustain a complex plot without dialogue. “Motor City” keeps things simple and is essentially one giant dick-measuring contest between two alpha males, tough guy Miller (Alan Ritchson) and drug lord Reynolds (Ben Foster). Miller cucks Reynolds by stealing his girlfriend, Sophia (Shailene Woodley). Reynolds gets him back by framing Miller for a cocaine bust, planted by corrupt cop Savick (Pablo Schreiber) and getting him incarcerated in a high-security prison. Sophia, feeling betrayed, falls back in Reynolds’ arms. Miller’s revenge will constitute a prison breakout and a final shoot-em-up with the bad guys. Ponciroli & St. John’s employ the current cinematic tool en vogue, a non-linear timeline to jumble up the pieces so they don’t quite click into place until late in the game. Visual interest in this simple story is considerably enhanced using a 1977 Detroit period setting.
The wordless formulation of the film is successfully pulled off, but it does result in awkward moments. It isn’t conceivable that human beings will have complex encounters without speech, and some silent confrontations in “Motor City” feel a bit forced. However, an audience will be willing to overlook and embrace it as a stylistic choice. The lack of dialogue brings rigor to the filmmaking in the lack of blatant exposition. Modern cinema has gone off the deep end with unimaginative, brain-rotting, data-dump for audiences. “Motor City” is forced to communicate this information visually, demonstrating that it can be done.
The silent nature introduces unexpected complications, mainly in characterizing Woodley’s Sophia. The other characters are all archetypes, fitting nearly into the good or bad guy column. Woodley’s sexpot femme fatale, a bit of a departure for her, is somewhere in the middle and thus comes across as inscrutable and inconsistent in her motivations, due to the lack of an obvious “I want” monologue or soliloquy. That had to have been what got Woodley to agree to the part, and to the movie’s credit, it does seem interested in her, despite its balls-out machismo, and affords her agency and screentime. Woodley tries, but it is ultimately a girlfriend role, the trophy for the alpha males to fight over. While the dialog-free conceit requires the actors to mug for the camera, it is enjoyable in a self-aware, halfway-to-exploitation film like “Motor City.”
Action fans bemoaning the lack of masculine action stars today—and no, the neutered superhero types don’t count—will find solace and enjoyment in the performance of Alan Ritchson. Ritchson is undoubtedly the biggest movie star in the world today, if not in terms of power or popularity, then at least in stature and musculature. And that is put to good use in his hulking characterization of a gentle brute who just wants to be happy but is constantly cockblocked by circumstances and bad guys. Ritchson is all pecs and biceps, even when he’s fully clothed, and seeing a certain brand of brute movie star charisma on-screen, not seen since Arnold’s heyday, is a welcome respite.
Ritchson’s equal is Ben Foster, in a performance of gratuitous excess. If Ritchson brings the beefy masculinity, Foster brings the sleaze, the flamboyance and the lasciviousness. The balding combover, the handlebar mustache, the shirt unbuttoned halfway down the torso to flaunt his chest hair, is almost too perfect. The 70s styling of all the characters is rather delicious – afros, mullets, and mutton chops abound, as do the most garish exemplars of 70s fashion. It is all decidedly kitsch and overdone, but it works in context, almost as a facsimile of Frank Miller comics, with a lurid Zack Snyder hangover.
Lionel Boyce and Amar Chadha-Patel complete the trio of good guys alongside Ritchson. Pablo Schreiber, a leading man in his own right, plays the second villain, though he probably signed up for his action finale alone. The staggeringly brutal man-o-man, involving a shotgun and a knife, is staged in an elevator and performed with muscular gusto, verve and ruthlessness by Schreiber and Ritchson. It makes the close-quarters encounters in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Mission Impossible: Fallout” seem like “Cocomelon”. In its prolonged bloodiness and brutality, it is closer to Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” or Iñárritu’s “The Revenant,” and one of the better action scenes in recent memory, with a nasty finish.
Strictly speaking, an unexpected, late-in-the-game coda with dodgy old-age make-up isn’t really necessary. But for much of its runtime, “Motor City” manages to sustain interest without dialogue, using montages, slow-motion and some stylish filmmaking to good effect. The action scenes and kills are bloody, and the performances and muscles are big. After Amazon’s “Reacher,” consider “Motor City” another showcase for the above-the-title billed Alan Ritchson as a credible, cinematic leading man. [A-]
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