Detroit

Last night I saw Detroit, starring John Boyega and Will Poulter.

The 1967 Detroit Rebellion was a reaction to a police raid of an after-hours unlicensed black bar, where a celebration was being held to welcome back soldiers. Over 40 lives were lost and nearly 2,000 people were injured during the five days of riots.

One incident that erupted during that unsettling time happened at the Algiers Motel, where a group of young black men and two white women were held hostage by white police and tortured because of a gunshot the cops thought they heard coming from the property. By the end of the incident, three unarmed black men were dead. No weapon was ever found.

In Kathryn Bigelow's fictionalized version of that event, she retells what happened with minor poetic license. Though most are represented accurately (according to survivors and witnesses), dialog of course has to be imagined with the exception of phrases/insults that were recounted in court transcripts at the murder trials.

The film is long, but so was that night for the innocent victims who suffered at the hands of brutal racists. Watching their agony and seeing the merciless actions of the white men continue is just a painful reminder that we haven't come so far since then. Police brutality is alive and well in America, as is racism, so we must force ourselves to sit through art such as this to see why we can't let these injustices continue.

The performance Will Poulter gives as Krauss, the ringleader of the whole operation, is Oscar-worthy, as you can barely look at him by the time the film concludes. Also stellar is John Boyega as Dismukes, a black guard who witnessed the incident, but remained unharmed because he "befriended" the cops. The struggle to stay silent is reflected in his eyes as the horrors play out.

Though it was unpleasant and uncomfortable to watch, I truly hope that high schools around the country will show this film as part of their Civil Rights lessons and show how a dark period in America's past played out. If we don't convince the youth to be color-blind, we'll find ourselves right back in that horrible place in no time.

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Stick It in Detroit

This morning I saw Stick It in Detroit, starring and directed by Robert Phelps.

Todd (Phelps) is a factory worker in the city of Detroit. Like many men, he still hangs out with the same buddies from his neighborhood that he grew up with. None of them seem remotely as bright or promising as Todd, but this doesn't seem to matter to him. He has a steady job, a steady girlfriend and all is right with the world.

That is, until success comes knocking at his door. When he is offered a promotion in Georgia, he's forced to choose between abandoning his comfort zone (and probably his girlfriend, who isn't sweet on the idea of moving south) or taking an opportunity that may never arise again and bettering his career.

The concept of the movie is a good one; the execution left a lot to be desired.

As a film critic, I make no secret of the fact I detest bathroom humor. I'm not entirely against low-brow comedies (after all, I proudly own Airplane and Fast Times at Ridgemont High), I just don't find feces funny.

And therefore, folks like me are pretty much disqualified from finding genuine laughs within this movie.

Entire scenes are built around visits to the toilet, and other "fantasy" scenes that could be funny in another context, seem out of place among the vulgarity.

The acting and directing are fine, but unfortunately the story can't be saved by these two factors.

Obnoxious friends and dead-end lives just aren't my idea of quality comedy.

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