Motor City is a well -known nickname for Detroit. The city has been the center for a very long time for the American autobau, an industrial branch that US President Donald Trump wants to revitalize. In this respect, it is more than fitting that this year is celebrating a film at the Venice Film Festival, which will play in Detroit in the 1970s at the heyday of the American auto industry. However, it can be doubted whether a detroit actually has a Detroit, as it is presented in the film “Motor City”. Because the big city in the state of Michigan is a classic sin city, a pocket of sin of drugs, crime, prostitution and corruption.
The story is simple and could hardly be more conventional. It has been seen in countless B films of the 1970s and 1980s of the past century. John Miller (Alan Ritchson) is a gangster with a golden heart, he loves Sophia (Shailene Woodley). But one of his crooked things goes into his pants, he wanders to prison, and the wedding with Sophia has been canceled. His arch -rival Reynolds (Ben Foster), a common villain with an even more common mustache, districts Sophia, Miller swears from prison. So far, so unoriginal.
John Miller (Alan Richton) is about to go to jail shortly before the wedding with his adored Sophia – but then he wanders.
What director's debutant Potsy Ponciroli gets out of the fabric, however, shows once again that the genre cinema is less what counts than that. Ponciroli completely dispenses with dialogues. To do this, he relies on furious cuts, which gives the strip from the first second to a tremendous force, as well as a sophisticated sound design-and non-stop with the hammering score by Steve Jablonsky and the best-of of 70s pop, rock and discoits. Moody Blues, Fleetwood Mac, Donna Summer and Countless others put the jacks in hand.
“Motor City” is a perfectly composed postmodern genre test arrangement. He reminds a bit of Hélène Cattet's euro-genre mash-ups and Bruno Forzani (“Amer”) if you move them from Europe to America and drive out the experimental narration. Another starting point would be Sam Levinson's opera-like choreographed plan sequences from the HBO hits series “Euphoria” or the black-humorous genreix “Assassination Nation”.
This is how cinema works
With as much formal will, the actors look more like chess figures that are moved from A to B – they remain functional caricatures. This does not require great craft from the actors. As part of the requirements placed on you, however, do the job well. Shailene Woodley gets the most to do as a love interest torn between two men. She creates the balancing act between disreputable femme fatal and vulnerable working girl. “Reacher” star Alan Ritchson is recommended as a physically present action hero for other cinema rolls. And Ben Foster can hardly be recognized behind mountains of necklaces, hair and sneaking wigs and open floral shirts.
The plot is straight and offers no surprises. But as already mentioned: the staging steps on the accelerator pedal unchecked from the first second and does not let air to air. “Motor City” is a film like a maximum efficient roller coaster ride in the changing pool of feelings. In the notes on the film, the director says that it was his declared goal to make a kinetic, immersive film that you can not only see but feel. Every intimate scene, every explosion, every sound, but also every silent moment should be a large whole union and the viewer should overwhelm. The fact that the risk succeeds is almost a little miracle. So much focus and narrative control with almost baroque, but still strictly observed form deserves applause.
Conclusion: In times when films focus on complicated and under -complex metanarrative, endless dialogues and constant overhang, Potsy Poncireli shows how cinema is: to the point, skillfully, breathless and in slim 100 minutes. Please more of it!
We saw “Motor City” at the Venice Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated his world premiere in the “Venezia Spotlight” series.