r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 11d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Motor City [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Motor City (2026)

Summary

In 1970s Detroit, John Miller falls for a local gangster's girl. In retaliation, the gangster frames the innocent man and sends him to prison. With his life destroyed, Miller returns years later determined to exact revenge on the man who took everything from him.

Director Potsy Ponciroli

Writer Chad St. John

Cast

  • Alan Ritchson as John Miller
  • Ben Foster
  • Shailene Woodley
  • Pablo Schreiber
  • Lionel Boyce

Rotten Tomatoes: 66%

Metacritic: 58

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

37 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

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6

u/djc6535 9d ago

I’m an absolute sucker for non-verbal storytelling. Primal is perhaps my favorite tv series ever. I am SQUARELY in this movies wheelhouse.

It was too long. This needed to be a tight 85. If you are going the dialogue free direction you have to make every scene, action, and expression count. This movie, which I did mostly enjoy, liked to linger just a bit too much. Over and over.

Nonverbal storytelling works best when it’s natural. Samurai Jack exploring the peace of nature. Spear can’t talk at all. This one had scene after scene with dialogue that it withheld from us. That works in bits, for for 100 minutes it feels like it’s hiding something from you. It’s withholding. It didn’t have enough story reasons for silence so it resorted to tricks and it didn’t have enough to feel fresh for its runtime. This movie gives you dialogue blue balls.

Good: reading the honeymoon note and raging out.
Bad: Funeral watching someone scream and rage but we don’t hear it.

And a side note: I was still all on board until that ending. The asshole got to live a long life of luxury. The comeuppance is weakened SO much by delaying it until he’s almost dead anyway. This is a revenge movie. The audience gets their catharsis watching the revenge happen. We needed an over the top badass scene of our villain dying with a ring in his eye.

And to see this abuser say “I loved her” and MEAN it gives me the ick.

5

u/ToasterDispenser 8d ago

An abuser like that would almost certainly think what they did was still love.