Review of Detroit (2017) by Beecee — 13 Aug 2017

This film could be broken into three parts: 1) The prologue, showing a good visual description of how the Detroit riots began, and introducing us to two of the main characters, a singer with the Dramatics and a security guard; 2) The Algiers Motel incident; 3) The trial of the police officers. As a person who was growing up as a resident of Detroit in 1967, I felt that the depiction of the beginnings of the riot was very convincing, and I thought the use of documentary footage was effective. However, I thought that the introductory montage of murals should have been deleted.

The scenes in the Algiers Motel were harrowing, and this section did seem long (but partly because it was so hard to watch). Yes, one might ask several questions - why didn't the supervisor immediately remove the mean cop (probably because there was a riot going on, and he felt he needed all the officers on duty). It's easy to say - why didn't the residents mention that the man who had been killed had just shot off a toy pistol? (Would it have made any difference?).

Unfortunately, this movie still seems to bring up issues that are still relevant today. State police/National Guard knew that the bad cop was going overboard, yet nobody stopped him. The consequences seem to be similar to those for various current incidents.

One other point - the depiction of Motown music and artists was spot on.