Motor City

*Motor City* is a nearly silent revenge film set in 1970s Detroit, in which a man is wronged, goes to prison, and then emerges to correct the situation through the medium of extreme violence. Director Potsy Ponciroli has stripped the genre down to its load-bearing elements: a wronged man, a dead-eyed antagonist, a Jack White soundtrack, and a series of fights that critics have described, with some accuracy, as a music video produced by someone with unresolved anger. The film has been compared to *Death Wish* and grindhouse cinema of the period it depicts. These are not comparisons designed to suggest progressive sensibilities.

The social consciousness index here registers so close to zero that the instrument requires recalibration. The female lead exists to be lost and mourned, a function women have performed in revenge narratives since the genre was invented. The diverse cast reflects Detroit's actual demographics rather than any ideological ambition. The villain is a gangster, not a hedge fund manager. The protagonist communicates his worldview through elevator-based altercations. There is no scene in which a character pauses the action to reflect on systemic inequality. This is because there are almost no scenes in which a character says anything at all.

It bears acknowledging that Alan Ritchson, off-screen, has expressed political opinions of some vigor, and Shailene Woodley has, in her personal life, chained herself to infrastructure in protest. None of this has migrated into the film, which remains resolutely uninterested in the world of ideas. *Motor City* is a grindhouse throwback with arthouse pretensions and a body count. Its cultural footprint, in the specific register we are measuring, is approximately the size of a spent shell casing.