R | 1h 43m | Crime, Pulp, Drama | 2026
You’d think that an action movie opening with a lurid, comic book-inspired, neon-spattered, mid-1970s Detroit night-scape—where a corpse gets tossed off a building onto the hood of a car (to the tune of a David Bowie song)—would be able to keep your attention. You’d be wrong.
‘Motor City’
Detroit, 1977. Former Army ranger and reformed ex-con John Miller (“Reacher” star Alan Ritchson) is finally off probation. He’s just proposed to his girlfriend, Sophia (Shailene Woodley), in the kitchen, when cops raid his apartment and “discover” cocaine in his car. It appears to be an open-and-shut case. It’s not.
It’s a setup arranged by Sophia’s nasty gangster ex-boyfriend Reynolds (Ben Foster, wearing a selection of highly-flammable nylon shirts, sporting a cocaine-friendly pinky-nail, and channeling a ‘70s Brut deodorant commercial).
Sophia, now believing John to be a drug wholesaler, dumps him and has herself a mink-swaddled luxury reunion and honeymoon with Reynolds. And so John is understandably consumed with a desire for revenge.
The Gimmick
This ridiculously schlocky, pulpy actioner B-movie flaunts the artifice of being 99 percent dialogue-free. The 1 percent of dialogue includes “I loved you!!” (howled through a police interrogation room’s one-way mirror by Woodley); “I loved her” (sneered by Foster), and “Ow!!” (said by anyone whose face has connected with John’s cinderblock-sized fist).
Which leaves the story to be shored up by ambitious action sequences, slo-mo shots of muscle-bound Ritchson walking away from explosions, and car headlights bouncing off rain-soaked asphalt—all accompanied by an intrusive 1970s rock-radio soundtrack. Clearly, it’s not intended to be taken too seriously. But could it at least have been slightly more interesting? I will say that the pulp-genre standard ingredient—1970s’ muscle cars—looks and sounds delicious.
Flaunting overt corniness to strains of Donna Summer, Bill Withers, The Moody Blues, and Fleetwood Mac, the highly choreographed shooting style results in a film that looks and feels like an extremely violent extended music video. The only possible takeaway is the potential to have fun with horrendously bad acting that’s either a the result of actors blatantly phoning it in, or of intentionally trying to be bad to inject some humor.
These are notable, “What did I just see?” moments.
Avoid “Motor City” unless you’re looking for a milder form of self-flagellation. It probably also works as an Ambien substitute.
