Directed by: Potsy Ponciroli
Starring: Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster, Ben McKenzie, Pablo Schreiber, Lionel Boyce, Amar Chadha-Patel
Motor City reminds me of John Woo's Silent Night, a revenge picture with no audible dialogue. I recall giving that movie a negative review because the concept distracted from the overall story. The movie contrived various ways to avoid spoken dialogue. Motor City works in much the same capacity, although there are snippets of audible dialogue every now and then to let us know that these people actually know how to speak and don't need to pantomime everything.
Once you get past the whole no talking thing, Motor City gains a rhythm and begins to move along as an involving action thriller. The plot feels like a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, with the innocent man framed and sent to prison because his fiancee is coveted by another. In Motor City, the action begins in 1977 with working man John Miller (Ritchson), an ex-con and Vietnam veteran, turning his life around. His probation is soon to be commuted and he proposes to his longtime girlfriend Sophia (Woodley), who works as a waitress after leaving behind a previous life as a criminal kingpin's girlfriend. Moments after John proposes, his home is invaded by cops and he is framed with kilos of heroin found in the trunk of his car. A slick, leather trench coat-wearing cop (Schreiber) is behind the frameup, and the man pulling his strings is Reynolds (Foster), who wants Sophia back. We see a flashback to the night John and Sophia meet, with Reynolds trying to intervene and John kicking the crap out of him in the process.
Sophia believes that John is a drug pusher and throws the engagement ring at him while he's behind the glass at the police station. Reynolds then suavely seduces Sophia into being his girl again, and he's such a snake that he sends photos of the eventual wedding to him in prison, taunting John and fanning the flames of revenge. John's Vietnam buddies (Boyce and Chadha-Patel) formulate a plan to break John out of prison and seek vengeance, with tragic consequences for Sophia when John tries to rescue her from Reynolds' fortress. Rescue is an apt word considering Reynolds has hooked her on heroin to keep her from leaving him.
John is already a hulking mass of seething rage and after Sophia's death, he turns up the jets to 200 in his quest to kill Reynolds and anyone who stands in his way. It's difficult not to mention Ritchson without using the word "hulk" or some variance of it. He is a massive physical presence, and in Motor City, he uses nonverbal skills to show his vulnerability and sadness. He speaks only three words in the movie and those are in the final scene and they carry resonance, as do the ones spoken by his nemesis he has spent years tracking. Since Motor City is not a movie of dialogue, but of action and emotions conveyed nonverbally, any words that are spoken carry a heavier emotional weight. The actors are more than up to the challenging task, although why filmmakers choose this route of storytelling is anyone's guess. I gave up trying to figure out the reason and found myself swept away by this tale.
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