Motor City

When a movie chooses to live on style alone, that style has to flood the screen in such abundance that substance feels unnecessary. To make up for a placeholder story and avoid slipping into repetition, it needs to move quickly and keep pushing higher, crazier, and bolder, until excess becomes the point. Motor City, Potsy Ponciroli’s first real foray into the action genre after the acclaimed slow burn western Old Henry and the dark crime comedy Greedy People, makes the mistake of placing its most exhilarating scene right at the start. It gets the blood pumping and raises expectations, but everything that follows scrambles to capture even a fraction of that energy, and it never does.

As if directing a first action film were not challenging enough, Ponciroli complicates matters further by building the entire project on an unusually bold conceit. Motor City is almost silent, with spoken dialogue limited to only five lines. What we get instead is a chain of music video sequences, songs bleeding into one another as the story moves from one stylish beat to the next. The intention is to create something universal, where action, music, and image carry the full weight of the drama. It is a brave choice, but one that also sets an extraordinarily high bar.

The plot itself is elemental. In 1970s Detroit, a blue-collar auto worker falls for a crime boss’s girlfriend, is framed, and sent to prison. She, convinced he chose crime over her, returns to the boss in despair. He escapes and sets out on a path of revenge, determined to punish every person who imprisoned him.

We have seen different variations of this story countless times, which makes stripping away cinema’s most powerful communication tool, dialogue, both justifiable and potentially exciting. It is a high-risk and high-reward approach that demands immense skill to pull off. Edgar Wright in Baby Driver, George Miller in Fury Road, and even Robert Rodriguez at his peak in Sin City showed how rhythm, variety, and escalation can make this kind of filmmaking work. When it fails, though, it slips into monotony, parody, or self-seriousness, and Motor City does all three. In trying to replicate what worked in Sin City, it ends up with far more in common with its ill-fated sequel.

Ponciroli at least deserves credit for consistency, never resorting to shortcuts. He is efficient in telling the story, although at no point does it feel suspenseful or surprising. As a first time action director he proves capable of delivering memorable sequences, such as the opener (which the film later replays), the candle knife prison escape, and an intense elevator fight. These moments showcase real creativity and command of the medium. He also draws strong work from his cast: Alan Ritchson brings intensity to the doomed hero, Shailene Woodley finds sincerity in the tragic love interest, and Ben Foster, as the despicable villain, is even granted notes of humanity.

But it stops there, and for a movie like this, simply having the look and three standout scenes is not enough. What is missing is relentless escalation. Instead it allows the audience too much space to breathe, and by doing so becomes what it absolutely should never become: boring.

Adding to the monotony is the music, which the film wears more proudly than anything else. Needle drops from Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” to Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” are undeniable classics, but because they are so iconic their use here feels clumsy and at times almost amateurish. Worse, the pacing of both songs and Jablonsky atmospheric score never accelerates. Even as the hero’s revenge grows darker and more urgent, the BPM remains stuck at the same brooding tempo that opened the film, draining momentum until the entire experience feels tired.

The first five minutes had me excited, hinting at a neon drenched Sin City spin that could spark a whole franchise. By the end, Motor City had already given me more than enough of this world, and far less than I wanted from the promise it began with.

This is part of Reviews On Reels TIFF 2025 Coverage. Due to the hectic rhythm of a film festival, it may be tweaked in the future. Still courtesy of TIFF.