Logan Lucky (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

Thank heaven Steven Soderbergh is back.

And what a way to reappear! After his fabulous (and supposedly final) film, Behind the Candelabra, in 2013, I mourned his self-imposed retirement. But it seems we've gotten lucky, as the title of his new film suggests, because Soderbergh's killer style has returned as well. Logan Lucky is his exercise in re-announcing himself, and while it isn't the most original piece of film this summer, it might be the most grounded, accessible, and downright classy comedy of the year.

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum in yet another excellent starring role), a hardworking man living long after his high school glory days are over, just got fired from his job. Apparently he hadn't disclosed his limp, a "pre-existing condition" that is discovered to be a liability for his construction company employers. When he learns that his ex-wife, now married to a wealthy car salesman with less smarts than dollars, plans to move farther away with his beloved daughter in tow, Jimmy desperately searches for a solution. Using his construction-job-related knowledge of an underground vault beneath a Charlotte racetrack, he enlists his family and acquaintances to help him with a great big heist.

After assembling his team -- including one-handed brother (Adam Driver), sister (Mellie), incarcerated explosives expert aptly named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), and his two idiot brothers -- Logan embarks on his plan. Soderbergh deftly takes us through the action without wasting a single instant on exposition. No plans are dissembled on screen; we just see the expert skills and brilliant schematics in motion as they are executed. That's about as streamlined as you can get, and it is so effective we hardly waste a moment wondering if they can pull it off. They just do it.

There are a few sidelined plots that add time onto the movie, including romantic intrigue in the form of Katherine Waterston and a bizarre racing team made of Seth MacFarlane and Sebastian Stan. Most affecting is Logan's daughter, preparing for her debut in a West Virginia pageant, and when Jimmy makes it back to see her perform, her sweet little singing voice stirs the spirit. The movie's ending takes a bit longer than I would have liked, stretching beyond the climax by introducing new characters and developing new mini-arcs. That is, an FBI team investigates the heist, and even when its agent (Hilary Swank, doing some really weird vocal thing and keeping her Mephistophelean eyebrows arched) is told the case is closed, continues her hunt. But never fear: The film ends before anything bad happens to our antiheroes. Of course, as with Magic Mike, it seems Soderbergh leaves the door wide open for someone to come in and make a sequel.

So, in case you didn't gather, it's essentially a de-glitzed reimagining of Ocean's Eleven. These aren't high-stakes Las Vegas games, and the interplay of sex and fashion isn't even a concern. Lucky features disabled, low- to no-income people with difficult lives and complex relationships. The Logan family, though remarkably resourceful and intelligent, don't put on airs and don't worry about appearances. It's all real to them, so it's real to us. That's what Soderbergh does with the film, too: Lucky never pretends to be something it's not, preferring to take pleasure in its own idiosyncratic rhythms. It's not a far cry from some Coen brothers films, actually, with its particular attention to a specific culture, oddball characters, and good-natured humor. Of course, its wisecracking sharp comedy is no less fabulous, and Adam Driver steals more than his share of scenes with pitch-perfect timing and hilariously awkward delivery. I don't know who writer Rebecca Blunt is, but she's welcome to come back into my ears anytime.

IMDb: Logan Lucky

Suffragette (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

If you, like I, saw some of the early advertisements for this movie, you probably avoided it for a while. A misguided photoshoot, you recall, for a particular Time Out article, featured in black-and-white coloring the four main actors in white t-shirts that read, "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave." Out of context, it's a troubling image that suggests slaves choose to be so, that only white women can be rebels or have the agency of choice, and that sexual injustice is historically the same as racial injustice. Furthermore, the film does not include so much as a passing reference to women of color advocating for suffrage in Britain at the time, such as prominent leader Sophia Duleep Singh, the Punjabi princess. Yet the film is not its marketing. Problematic and troubling as these choices were, Suffragette proves an effective movie with remarkably relevant messages.

This film, directed by Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and written by Abi Morgan (Shame, The Iron Lady), centers on a small group of working-class women in an isolated factory. As we saw in Detroit -- and in loads of historical films, actually, as The Patriot comes to mind -- it is unquestionably easier and usually more dramatically effective to explore a microcosm of some significant event than to survey an entire movement with too many characters and locations and times. This movie works so well because of its highly dramatized and somewhat fictionalized narrative. The real-life events were bigger than life, and so the specifics of the film are too. The whole thing may not be "true" but that doesn't mean the things it represents aren't.

Suffragette, as I said, follows a small group of factory women, specifically one Maud Watts played by Carey Mulligan. Seemingly by happenstance, she transitions from working on laundry to giving her testimony to parliament in an effort to gain the right to vote. Once denied that right, the women involved are beaten and jailed by the police, thus sowing the seeds of social justice in young Maud's heart. While she walks a dangerous personal line with her husband (Ben Whishaw), boss, neighbors, and coworkers, she finds friends who quickly band together and continue the civil disobedience. Joined by a cast of women soldiers including Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press, Romola Garai, and especially Helena Bonham Carter, these activists fearlessly fight the unjust law, brutal police (who knew force-feeding was so horrific to watch?), cruel husbands, and abusive employers. Jailed time and again, they paint a striking portrait of perseverance and desperation.

It's one of the best examinations in film of how and why activists can and often do turn violent to affect change: Their lives depend on it. Our expectations of early twentieth-century England are upturned by the fierce violence we witness. Gone are the strictures and finesse of Downton Abbey. Nowhere is the silly sweetness of Mrs. Banks, singing about being a "Sister Suffragette." This picture is filmed like a thriller, with a handheld camera that breaks any barrier between us and the action. Severe close-ups, thick atmosphere, and restricted vision keep things immediate and direct. Against a cold and bleak backdrop, the film highlights its own relevancy and declares its own burning anger. It's an urgent battle cry, one that will outrage you, work your tear ducts, and leave you breathless at its ending.

"I'd rather be a rebel than a slave," put back in its context, is the effective rallying cry of Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep. It's strange that she received such prominent billing for such a brief appearance (one scene, if I counted correctly). Pankhurst was, as history has determined, the iconic suffragist of the time, and so her appearance reminds us that the problems faced by our small band of heroines are reflective of the state of all women in Britain. Her presence, and the subsequent rioting, serves as a sort of turning point in Maud's character arc: Her firebrand style and oratory magic ignites a passion in Maud that radicalizes her and informs her behavior for the remainder of the film. It may not do quite the same for us, who know from history that Pankhurst's politics were not always so noble, but in the moment we understand how and why we would have gotten involved ourselves. Let us go forth and do likewise.

IMDb: Suffragette

Free Fire (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

Ben Wheatley's newest flick is what would happen if you cross the climax of a Western with Tarantino and place it in 1970. But it's actually entertaining.

I've always preferred his horror pictures, and I love High-Rise despite its being a bit of a mess, but Free Fire does some really interesting things. It's essentially an hour and a half of chaos and comedy with delightful if forgettable performances, excellent choreography, a wisecracking screenplay, and lots of gun violence. I don't much care for shootouts in movies, let alone movies about shootouts, but there was enough fluff here to keep me invested. And, of course, it has a double-digit body count.

The primary fluff? Costumes. This movie is period all the way, and the '70s flair is killer. The movie is an homage to '70s B-movie style, especially with the polyester and shoulder pads, even with its lighting, which douses the set in a golden, hazy hue. "The set" is correct because there is only one: an old warehouse in Boston that serves, at least on this occasion, as the business location of an arms dealer. Sharlto Copley plays Vernon, a raging psychopath, selling his wares this time to some Irish Republican guerrillas, led by Cillian Murphy. Their associates and henchmen -- including the ferocious Brie Larson and adorable Armie Hammer -- are about evenly divided, totaling 13 characters. 12 are angry men, whose anger issues and innate violence are ignited by the revelation that one (Jack Reynor) had beaten up another (Sam Riley) recently for abusing his female cousin.

It doesn't take long -- the exposition is the first third of the movie, and frankly by the end of the film I still wasn't sure of the character names or motivations -- before bullets fly. The avenger shoots the abuser, and immediately both sides grapple for the guns (which seems unnecessary since almost all of them already had other guns on their persons) and it's, well, free fire. By the halfway mark of the movie, everyone's been shot. Half of them can't even walk. But their mouths are working just fine, and their wisecracks and insults hit the mark far more often than their bullets do. It seems very American that the characters stay hidden most of the movie, popping up sporadically to fire a stream of shots at nothing in particular or at least in the general direction of another person, and only manage to injure each other occasionally.

It's an absurdist chamber piece, but instead of wondering when Godot will show up, these guys (and gal) are trying to kill each other for no discernible reason. Several times characters pointedly mention not knowing who shot whom, or who is dead or alive. More importantly, they don't seem to care. Even after one particularly gruesome death, the characters seem to remain in good humor. The violence was inevitable, the results of that violence are expected and witnessed, but there are no lessons to be learned. It's a damning indictment of gun culture even as it defends that culture against those who would misuse it: Namely, raving lunatics and insecure men seeking to overcompensate.

There's no shortage of intelligence in this movie, though I would have preferred a bit more clarity on characters and their motivations. Sure, the film is shot and edited with precision, and how the makers managed to find so many interesting perspectives in a single, small warehouse is beyond me. But ultimately I didn't much care for anyone, so I didn't feel anything as they died. It's the opposite of a horror film, where you so often expect everyone will die but get attached to them anyway; here, I wanted to love Larson and Murphy and Hammer and Copley, but I wasn't given the chance to know them. The film even comments on this, near the climax: The only phone in the warehouse is ringing (I know, a shootout movie without cell phones is not something we see much of these days). The only phone is in the upstairs office, so of course going there is akin to suicide. One character finally picks up the phone and is immediately shot and killed by Copley. We hear the recorded message, offering a free lifetime supply of premier ground meat. The irony is that half the people in the warehouse are already ground meat, and the other half are well on their way.

IMDb: Free Fire

Desierto (2016)

Score: 3 / 5

A group of Mexican immigrants looking for a better life cross the US border illegally, hiding in the back of a truck. When the vehicle breaks down in the desert, the driver points the migrant workers to their destination, though they split into two groups soon after. It's an important image to see, especially in our current political climate, and I'm struck by how little we see this in movies and shows. American Crime presented some really great immigration and forced labor stories in its third season -- on network television, no less! -- but by and large, we don't see much of this dramatized. Why? Too timely? Too disturbing? Too ugly? Maybe these, and maybe more. Give it a bit more time, and an Oscar winner within the next few years will feature a story on the Syrian refugee crisis. Maybe they'll get Julia Roberts to star, he said knowingly.

Almost immediately we're introduced to Sam, a good ol' boy shooting rabbits in the wasteland with his big ol' rifle and big ol' dog, aptly named Tracker. Sam is a pragmatic man. Apart from naming his dog with the most utilitarian name possible, he doesn't put on airs with his camouflage pants, a machete on his side, a pale yellow shirt that blends perfectly into the sand, and a scarf to cover his lower face. He's a vigilante in the extreme, a violent man who may believe in anything but only practices violence. If you've seen the most recent Walking Dead season (which I haven't yet), you've probably already seen the ways Jeffrey Dean Morgan can be terrifying. This was my first experience, and it doesn't quite disappoint.

While hunting, he spots the immigrants and without hesitating takes aim. There is no deep characterization at work, no conscious motivation or moral dilemma. They are meat, wild animals to be slaughtered without blinking an eye. And slaughter them he does, with only the slightest hint of passion: "Gotcha you fucker" he mutters, as he kills a woman kneeling on the ground, mourning her already murdered husband. Leaving a mess of corpses on the valley floor below, he returns to his truck (which, you might notice, boasts a red Confederate flag) and begins giggling before shouting to no one in particular, "This Is My Home." Sound familiar?

Of course, he hasn't killed everybody. We've still got an hour of movie to go. The survivors, hiding amongst rocks and cacti, attempt to continue the journey. As in any horror film, though, and many cinema houses, they neglect to silence their gaddam phones, which betray their presence to Hunter Sam. He looses his Malinois upon them, which tracks them down and attacks with teeth that belong to Red Riding Hood's granny. One of the poor souls slips and falls, now broken and mangled on the canyon floor, bitten by the dog until Sam approaches, orders the dog to move, and shoots the man point-blank without so much as a word. Day turns to dusk, and Sam retires to camp at his truck. We wonder, Where is his home? Why doesn't he sleep there? I doubt it, but is all this land his property? Is he even more aimless and wandering than the immigrants? Regardless, his predatory existence is not without its own tragedy. He tells Tracker he knows he's "gotta get out of this hell; heat's messing with my brain." No shit, pal.

Nothing in the picture is particularly unexpected or unpredictable, but that doesn't stop it from being shocking. Is it exaggerated drama? Of course. Is it untrue? Not in the least. Claim racism, classism, nationalism, or just that old-fashioned American love of violence, but Desierto packs a hell of a punch. If the film is meant as a political manifesto or even a microcosm of immigration in the Southwest, it fails miserably. Its politics are nearly absent, apart from the caricature that is Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character, and the immigrants themselves are reduced to nameless targets for slaughter. If, on the other hand, it's only meant to be a white-knuckle thriller that feeds off contemporary anxieties, it's a stylish success. I suspect that's closer to the mark, not unlike the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, a work meant to delve into a hunter's mindset and the horror within.  Director Jonas Cuaron and cinematographer Damian Garcia throw us into the setting as an almost immersive experience (they might have cared a bit more for sound editing), and their vision is one of bleak horror. This desert is dry and harsh, a sort of limbo at the edge of the world, and as our villain obviously thinks, a good place to die.

SPOILER ALERT. In case you can't predict the things.
Speaking of dying, after the initial mass murder, there isn't much death until the end. One spectacular death takes place in a bramble patch of thorns and cacti, as our protagonist Moises (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) attempts to flee Tracker. At the last, he fires a flare gun directly into the dog's open maw, and the fiery explosive horrifically injures the dog, which Sam mercy-kills, though it again seems more out of pragmatism than mercy. Later, at the climax of the plot, the characters play cat-and-mouse atop a physical climax of rocky outcropping. After falling, Sam snaps his leg and cries and begs Moises. He begs for life, for forgiveness, even for water, and at first it's kind of nice because he's repenting, and he must not be a take-it-to-the-grave kinda guy, but then we realize he's not repenting, he's just desperate, and then we realize it's just sick. He's sick, his ideas are sick, and there's nothing even remotely moving about him. He's a monster, not even worth pity in his otherwise pathetic state, and as Moises ignores his pleas not to be left alone, we want to walk away too. Thankfully, apart from a somewhat happy ending for our protagonist, the movie is almost over.

The main problem with the movie is difficult to pinpoint. It possibly takes itself far too seriously. Its vain attempts at being affecting and emotional at the end are wasted on its audience, who by the end are outraged and horrified and don't want to be mollified by romance or hope. I think, though, that the film just doesn't work hard enough to be taken seriously. It only needed a little bit more characterization, a little bit of context and sympathy, a little bit wider scope or stronger narrative logic, and it could have been deeply moving. It could have been heartwrenching, and it could have been spectacular. Instead, it plays things safe, grounding itself in reality visually, which puts it at distinct odds with the vagaries and generalizations of its screenplay. Is it a parable, or is it reality? The filmmakers don't even know.

IMDb: Desierto

The Girl with All the Gifts (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Just around the time you think there's no life left in the zombie movie, another one rises. Of course, we may play fast and loose with what constitutes a "zombie", be it a disease or curse, afflicting the living or the dead, humans or otherwise, globally or locally. But there are tropes and themes that tend to stick with the genre, and The Girl with All the Gifts fits the bill. In the near future, a fungal disease has ravaged humanity, turning people into mindless cannibalistic monsters called "hungries." The pockets of militarized survivors search desperately for a cure or vaccine, and their only hope lies with second-generation children who maintain the ability to speak and think. They also, however, crave flesh and will turn ravenous if humans nearby do not mask their scent with a special medical gel.

These children have become test subjects in a frightful bunker, researched and tested by scientists and rigidly controlled by soldiers. They are taught and raised by a motherly woman named Helen (Quantum of Solace and Clash of the Titans star Gemma Arterton). Her favorite pupil is our protagonist, young Melanie (played with astonishing skill by Sennia Nanua), whose aptitude and intelligence outshine the others and whose love for Helen provides the film's heart. But their affection is not without its difficulties, and others have noticed Melanie's brilliance. Dr. Caldwell (played by the always perfect Glenn Close), in charge of finding a cure, also has her eye on Melanie though her attention is purely scientific. Cold and calculating, we quickly learn she has been experimenting on the children -- "experimenting" here meaning "murdering by removing their nervous system" -- and Melanie is next up on her slab. Helen fights back but is quickly disarmed; when has going up against Glenn Close ever been a good idea?

Thankfully for Melanie, the zombies choose that moment to overrun the compound. For us zombie aficionados, this movie may not take the cake. But it boasts some impressive and ingenious devices that set it apart from the slew of similar flicks. Its British setting recalls 28 Days Later, the bleak violence reminds us of The Walking Dead, and the fast-moving animalistic "hungries" are of the same cloth as those in World War Z. This movie is not original in those ways, but it features an unusually intelligent screenplay that meditates on moral dilemmas and complex characters. It relies on practical effects and real people under zombie getup, not relying on CGI and excessive, weightless monsters. Its long-shots, especially the one when Melanie and Helen try to escape the compound as it falls to the hungries, are exquisitely choreographed, and the set designs are so fabulous it's easy to get lost in the world of the movie.

And that's just the first half of the film! After that, well, you're on your own.

I haven't read the book by M.R. Carey, but I noticed he also wrote the screenplay, and it is a magnificent introduction between us. Besides its complicated characters and references to other zombie media, the movie constantly challenges its genre. Black humor and body horror are juxtaposed with romance and science fiction, all mashed up with social commentary, environmentalism, and moral chaos in an otherwise post-apocalyptic coming-of-age drama about a young woman of color. What else could you want? Oh, and just wait for the ending. It turns the tables so fast, you'll be knocked off your ass.

IMDb: The Girl with All the Gifts

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

"Every body has a secret," the tagline reads. That seems to be the mantra for the main characters of this film, a father-and-son pair of coroners. Working diligently and in perfect tandem, they deliver results with speed and care. One night a mysterious woman is wheeled in, the only unidentified corpse in a particularly violent murder scene, and the sheriff requests her cause of death to be high priority. Foregoing his date night, Austin stays with his father Tommy to open up the corpse.

Each new piece of evidence, however, leads them to different and conflicting conclusions. How can her skin be pristine when the organs beneath display stab wounds? How is fresh blood seeping from her nose and incisions when her cloudy eyes suggest she has been dead for days? Why are the bones in her wrists and ankles broken, and why has her tongue been cut out, and why are her lungs blackened from severe burns? Then there's the things they find inside her stomach. As if their night couldn't get any weirder or worse, strange things begin to happen around them. A storm arises, and something blocks the exit. Strange noises are coming from the vent, and the phone line isn't working. Light bulbs explode, doors open and close, and the other bodies in the morgue disappear.

The film is largely a love letter to the genre. It sews various motifs together until the movie itself becomes a Frankenstein's monster of references and likenesses. Besides sundry movies and shows, however, it also reminded me of a Stephen King short story. It starts with a mysterious scene of death, moves into a homely little location with two hard workers in a secluded environment, builds in tension and horror, reveals an explosive secret that hinges on our understanding of history, climaxes with an emotional sacrifice, and ends with the knowledge that the evil is not vanquished. In many ways, the film reminded me of Oculus, a similarly family-centered horror film that relishes in perceptions and misperceptions of reality; it's that quintessential meta-horror where what we see is not always what we get, horrifying for us the audience because we only see what the movie wants us to see. When the characters hallucinate, so do we, and we cannot trust our primary sensory access to the film.

I don't want to spoil the fun, so I'll leave it there. It's a 90-minute blast of pure horror. Artsy and stylish, the film takes immense pleasure in eking out the frisson we feel around dead bodies. The morgue's atmosphere is fabulously precise, and Brian Cox as the coroner/father is pitch-perfect casting. It's one of the scariest movies I've seen in some time, and I made the mistake of watching it alone in the dark. Sure, the climax is overwritten and tries too hard to Affect you. But if that's the only sin, we can forgive it. Even if Jane Doe can't.

IMDb: The Autopsy of Jane Doe 

Annabelle: Creation (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I went in expecting another run-of-the-mill big-budget horror sequel with little bark and no bite, wallowing in the same way its predecessor did. If you saw Annabelle, you'll remember that it was fun and simple but not quite terrifying. It had its moments of beauty, thanks to its director and stars (especially Alfre Woodard!), but it didn't come close to the nail-biting terror of either Conjuring film, with which it shares a budding universe. Going in for round two, I expected much of the same, if more watered down, kind of like the way Sinister 2 was more an extension of ideas than an evolution. I was wrong.

Creation is beyond any expectation you may have. It might follow some formula, but its design, style, and execution set it apart from the mess of random horror churned out by some studios. Remember Ouija? It was so disappointing, and its sequel, while indisputably better, couldn't quite escape a similar fate of banality. Creation takes its cue from that sequel and, for the first time I can recall, makes a fabulous sequel so dazzling that it actually improved my opinion of the first installment.

As we knew, it's an origin story for the titular doll. If you, like I, thought that was a worthless premise for a movie, you'd be right. Thank heaven these filmmakers didn't have that attitude! What we get is a standalone movie that chills and thrills before finally, in its last scene, leading directly into the opening of Annabelle and making that "inciting incident" so much more interesting and horrifying than it was at first. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

A nun and six orphaned girls find refuge at an isolated farmhouse after their orphanage is closed. The homeowners -- dollmaker Samuel and his bedridden wife Esther -- exist more than live, having spent the last twelve years mourning the death of their daughter Annabelle. We don't find out until later in the movie, but they believed the spirit of their daughter had been trying to contact them, so they invited it to live in one of their dolls before realizing it wasn't their beloved child. The demon terrorized them and disfigured Esther before the couple locked it away in a closet with the help of a priest. Of course, evil will out, and one of the curious new girls unwittingly frees the spirit from its confines. It terrorizes and attacks each member of the household with increasing menace, especially young Janice whose polio forces her to wear a brace and crutch and use a motorized chair to navigate stairs.

I won't reveal more of the plot, because while it unfolds much as we expect, the twists and scares are well-earned and deserve their shock value. Fair warning: There is a body count here. It's not just the kindly priest or sacrificial foster mother who die in this picture; everyone is vulnerable. This demon isn't just the jump-out-and-spook-you kind, he's the take-corporeal-form-and-attack-you kind. And, importantly, the script is intelligent enough to make us care about all the characters, to keep us engaged with the plot, and to keep the scares coming.

Director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (Maniac, The Crazies) make a great team. Their use of lighting and inspired camerawork keep the horror visceral and immediate, forcing our eyes to the shadows and background. As we saw in The Conjuring 2 and The Woman in Black, some of the scariest sights are those blurry shapes in the background that move when they shouldn't.

They also do some homage to other films in this franchise, and suggest more possibilities for spin-offs. Images of the demon leering from behind the doll or other characters remind us of the scariest scenes in the first Annabelle. A scene where the demon (The Ram, I suppose we should call him?) possesses someone features a black goo being ingested, as we saw happened to the mother in the first Conjuring). We know a movie about Valak the demon nun is coming soon (also to be filmed by cinematographer Alexandre), and we see that spirit in a haunting photograph. The post-credits scene, too, opens the door for that picture, solidifying the date (five years before Creation) and location in Romania (where the nun leading the orphanage in Creation was previously stationed). We also know that a spin-off flick of the Crooked Man is coming, and this film kind of honors that through its use of a scarecrow during the climax. While I don't think the scarecrow is meant to be anything more than a conduit for the primary demonic antagonist, its physical movement and placement in the plot reminded me of the Crooked Man. Could we see yet another spin-off? Maybe! If the studio keeps up the fine quality, I'm game for just about anything.

I could always use more Alfre Woodard, though.

IMDb: Annabelle: Creation

Detroit (2017)

Score: 5 / 5

The Detroit riot of 1967 was one of the deadliest and most destructive in US history. It lasted almost a week after police raided an unlicensed bar and resulted in 43 deaths, thousands of injuries, and thousands of buildings destroyed. A lengthy history of injustice, police brutality and corruption, racial and social violence, and economic collapse led to the riots, which have only been surpassed in size and scope by the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the NYC draft riots during the civil war (100 years before the events of this movie). In Detroit, director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal (the team behind The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty) do what they do best by dramatizing a war zone. We might wash over the events in history as a "disturbance" or a crime spree, but Detroit knows its subject better than that.

Bigelow begins with onscreen-text narration of Detroit's racial and economic history using the paintings of the Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence. Once the stage is set, she dives right into the initial raid on the speakeasy as its black patrons celebrate one of their own (the always awesome Anthony Mackie) returning from Vietnam. Once rounded up by the white police and lined up on the street, observers start crowding around, and shouting and panic between the parties involved quickly leads to minor violence. Fueled by anger, the heat, lack of information, knowledge of Detroit police culture, and probably alcohol-heightened mob mentality, the crowd goes from throwing cans and bottles at the cop cars to store fronts. It doesn't take long before the city is aflame.

That's the beginning of the movie. A riveting twenty or so minutes of almost no discernible dialogue as cops and black civilians shout and cuss at each other, each party afraid but only one group with the authority to control the situation in a calm and responsible way. They do not. Bigelow and Boal have already shown us their incredible ability to subvert expectations and delve deep into the psychology of their characters: The leads of Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker are addicted to violence, hellbent on fulfilling their jobs while lives hang in the balance. The former film courts the morality of torture (something which, I suspect, led to the Oscar being stolen from both it and Bigelow that year, no thanks to Senator John McCain's review; beware of politicians using media for their own purposes! Remember Califano and Selma!) while the latter examines the nature of violence in white men's hearts. Here in Detroit, however, the character lens is much wider, as we understand the multiple points of view and the utter lack of a moral center by many parties. The black mayor pleads early in the film for peace, asking the rioters to please "not mess up your own neighborhoods." It's a reasonable cry, and one we hear repeated often from Ferguson to Baltimore.

But this movie's focus lies ever-so-slightly more on the alternative to that. What is it that provokes vandalism and arson in these riots? Of course, single shots of the film may answer that as simply as a lone rioter doing what he knows is wrong simply because he'll get away with it amidst the chaos. But the film, I think, suggests something more at work. By the end of the picture, we wonder what we would have done differently, had the police and lawyers and politicians treated us the same way as the black citizens of the time. That's the magic of this movie. It forces us into the headspace of everyone involved, how it's all a moral gray area and the relativity of consequences are as complex as the urgency of the situation.

Who are we to say that the way the rioters handled themselves badly? Their lives were at stake. Early in the film, as the trucks of national guardsmen roll into the city, the soldiers are looking for potential snipers on the roof. A little girl peers out her window to see what's happening and is immediately shot dead. Later, as dozens of arrested black men crowd a police station, the cops are as overwhelmed and confused as the prisoners. Trying to overpower the noise of outraged suspects and arrestees, officers hold men's cuffed hands up while shouting, "Whose prisoner is this?", highlighting the chaos and irresponsibility of the department in a scene that is horrifyingly reminiscent of a slave auction. Think that's taking the idea too far? Try again: One especially violent cop, while chasing a looter, shoots him twice with a shotgun. When the looter climbs a fence and escapes, the cop turns to his partner and says, "What a fucking specimen, huh?" He views the man as an animal, one who apparently deserved to be shot and killed even though he was only looting, was running away, and had no weapon.

But just as I was getting bewildered by the many perspective points and characters, Bigelow finds her real focal point. After introducing so many disparate characters and locations, she settles us in for a ride as her camera almost literally zooms in on the Algiers Motel. This sequence is the body of the movie, a masterpiece of horror cinema that details the still mysterious events that happened the night of July 25. I'm inclined to believe, generally, what the movie portrays due to public records of the event and the presence of one of its direct witnesses on the set every day, though there is obviously lots of room for dramatization. I won't spoil it for you, though if you know your history, you'll be as fascinated as I was.

Even if you don't, you'll be blown away by the horror shown onscreen. I'll leave the plot for other sources to describe, but in an ensemble movie of excellent performances, the standout for me was Will Poulter. Here he plays the murderous psychopath in a police uniform I previously mentioned. It's not a nuanced performance, but it's a dazzling, balls-out portrayal of absolute evil that stands out because the rest of the movie is so firmly entrenched in moral contradictions and relativity. Poulter either didn't get the memo or didn't care, and it pays off, as his baby face belies sinister designs and his Mephistophelean eyebrows indicate his devilish tendencies. He's the stuff of nightmares here, terrorizing the black men and two white women in the motel to find out which one might have a gun. Though he had previously been chastised by his superior for murdering the looter, he had been ordered to "get back to work" while he awaited formal murder charges (a not-so-sly early bit of criticism of white police departments that allow suspected criminal cops to continue working, when ordinary citizens would be hauled in for questioning or worse).

Despite that setback, Poulter's cop manages to get into the thick of the rioting. As his team charges into the Algiers Motel (it's a cartoonish portrayal lambasting Bad Cop culture: shooting the facade of the building like in a bad Western, the officers don't even announce their presence or offer a chance for innocent parties to evacuate), he quickly takes the reins. Even Guardsmen defer to him, and when the state police arrive they too let local cops take charge. Once, when a disturbed soldier leaves the motel to escape the crazed killer inside, he tells an incoming superior officer that Poulter is terrorizing black people, the state trooper declares, "That can't be right. They have their civil rights," and turns and leaves, not wanting to get mixed up in civil rights violations. What's that old saying about good men who do nothing? Maybe they're not such good men after all. What is missing from this movie, I'd argue, is a logical explanation if not examination of how and why this culture was (and is) so pervasive: Where is the police review board? Why were the police armed so heavily? What factors led to a nearly all-white police outfit, and why were bigoted acts of violence not disciplined? Of course the answer is racism, but it would be so much more interesting to see the realities of racist legislation and administration than to see a man who is basically the Iago to Detroit's Othello.

As a movie that directly concerns black experiences and racial injustice, it is disheartening and a little disturbing to see so much white perspective and agency in Detroit. That's historically accurate, sure, but I would have liked to see some more of the black heroes of the riots. When, after Mr Evil Cop lets one of the young black men leave the motel, he runs into another white cop; it's telling that the cop's immediate sympathy and care for the beaten youth is one of the most heartwrenching scenes of the movie. And then there's John Boyega, who performs easily the most thankless (and severely underwritten) role in the movie. He's a private security guard whose proximity to the Algiers sends him into the fray. Boal and Boyega portray him as a good man stuck in an impossible situation, who tries to do a little bit of good here and there but who ultimately ends up enabling the bloodthirsty police and becoming their scapegoat. Historically, that seems one of the less-likely possibility of his mysterious presence. It's almost as if Bigelow and Boal don't want us to know that some of the witnesses actually testified that he had participated in the beatings and humiliation that night, and that afterward he was found as guilty as the cops by an all-black city tribunal that included Rosa Parks.

Just as we saw in Dunkirk, Detroit is designed to be an immersive experience. It's a cinematic test of endurance, daring us to look away or to get sick like Boyega's character does at the end. While it stops short of making brazen judgments on most of the action and characters, the movie offers a harrowing experience and requires lots of thinking and discussion afterward. Perhaps most interestingly, and a conclusion I took some time to come to, Bigelow and Boal make this movie not a universal statement to encompass the whole history of Detroit during the 1967 riots. I expected that, and was initially disappointed when it was not the case. Why didn't they name the movie Algiers or something, since that's what it directly concerns? But upon reflection, the filmmakers do something much more savvy. They turn the Algiers into a centerpiece of the city and the conflict. The movie takes the riots and the horrors and the chaos and turns its narrative into a microcosm. It's an in-depth examination on a small scale of what was happening on a big scale.

What is still happening on a big scale.

IMDb: Detroit

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

This is what action movies should be. Between this movie and Baby Driver, we've seen in just a couple months the future of action film. Brutal action paired with fierce performances and stylish delivery. They move fast and fight dirty, and before you start taking things too seriously they knock you back to reality with a killer soundtrack.

Atomic Blonde takes place at the end of the Cold War, in a no less chilly Berlin of 1989. The wall is about to come down but the international players are still scrambling for information and influence. A List appears, detailing the active spies and field agents in the Soviet Union, and its carrier is murdered by the KGB. While MI6 agents sparring over microfilm intel isn't exactly fresh, that's not the point of this venture. Another agent named Lorraine is dispatched immediately to recover the list and eliminate the threat of Satchel, the double agent responsible for the recent murder.

The moment she sets foot in Berlin, she is attacked by the enemy. The enemy, here, could be anyone, as she learns, and the mostly nameless thugs are all there for one sole purpose: to be whooped on by the woman. Charlize Theron plays Lorraine with magnetic badassery, the kind she has exhibited many times before in Monster and Mad Max: Fury Road, here taken to an exciting new level. She does her own stunts, and still she acts rings around everyone else in action films today. Lorraine is the hero we need for the movie, and Theron is the hero action movies have needed for years. Compare any shot of her here to a popular action movie and ask yourself if that man has half of her talent or grit. You think of Schwarzenegger or his ilk and you may see an icon, but he hasn't got the stamina, the technique, or the heart Theron displays here.

Time and again she kicks ass, and by the end of the movie we see the strain it has put on her. We also see that her body isn't the only thing at work in the picture, as she completely turns the tables on every single man in the movie. She's not who she appears to be, and she's not really what anyone else wants her to be. She is her own agent, and her agency (pardon my wordplay) is what's really center-screen here. She rocks the world of fashion, too, as her getup is both drop-dead sexy and appropriately lethal. She kicks booty with high heels and never misses a step. The best part? She makes her mark and directly inserts herself into the male-dominated genre, and doesn't need or want your permission or commentary. Like Jessica Chastain's character in Miss Sloane, she is the leading lady in all her glory, and we want to be her the whole time until the very end when we find out she's actually on a level so far beyond us that we despair in our ecstasy.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But that was my reaction. My dear friend commented afterward, and I paraphrase, "I was wondering why her accent was so bad the whole time. We all know she can kill any accent she wants. But then she [SPOILER] and I totally got it. She was giving us clues the whole time." Clever bastards.

Director David Leitch (John Wick and the upcoming Deadpool 2) knows how to keep the movie intense. Sure, it's not as Dramatic or Important as, say, Dunkirk, but this movie knows what it's doing and stays true to that vision. And what a vision: Leitch and his cinematographer Jonathan Sela (John Wick, The Midnight Meat Train) douse everything with cold, neon lights and shoot sharply contrasting textures. They view the action up close and personal, and the lengthy climax -- a fight inside a stairwell as Lorraine tries to leave Berlin with her charge -- is a long single shot I wish I could have timed. It's a relentless exercise in intensity and immediacy, a masterclass in planning and execution with awesome style.

PS: I can scarcely believe I forgot to mention it, but James McAvoy is also fabulous in this flick, and he seems to be having a blast. Who wouldn't in those bell-bottoms?? But he's my boyfriend, so back off.

IMDb: Atomic Blonde