Motor City - A Stylish Action Thriller Drama with Minimum Dialogue that might not be for Everyone

This movie was put under Coming Soon section of various Indonesian cinema chains since few months back and I was looking forward to see due to its lead star. I think it was scheduled last month but somehow changed to two weeks ago and finally released mid of this week. As I was having other things, I only got the chance to see it yesterday with my wife. All right then, let's find out more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the 1970s Detroit where ex convict John Miller (Alan Ritchson - War Machine, Reacher TV series etc) was just free from probation and planned to marry his girlfriend Sophia (Shailene Woodley - To Catch a Killer, The Divergent Series: Allegiant Part 1 etc) who used to be in relationship with crime boss Reynolds (Ben Foster - The Contractor, Warcraft: The Beginning etc). 

Unfortunately his plan was ruined when he was caught by the police led by Savick (Pablo Shcreiber - His & Hers mini series, Den of Thieves etc) for a crime he did not commit and was jailed for it. After finding out the real persons behind his capture, John decided to plot revenge against them.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

The movie started off with some brutal action scenes which gave us hint of what was to come. However after around 10 minutes or so, I finally realized that it did not have a lot of dialogues and the story was told visually using scenes which were quite easy to understand accompanied by nice music. And throughout the whole movie I think it only had less than 20 times people conversing. The lack of dialogues at certain times did make us having to guess what really went on, though it could be understood at later stage. It was truly something that we never experienced before when watching a movie. But due to this different approach, some people might not be enjoying it as proven by two people leaving the studio in the middle of the movie without ever returning.

Anyway, the plot might have been pretty standard but the film's story telling was what set this one apart from other similar revenge driven movie. The action was noticably very stylish which my wife and I enjoyed. The slow motion scenes were wonderful and that one fight sequence was brutal and amazing. The finale was also quite awesome but the ending felt rather anticlimactic for me even if I could understand why they wanted to do it in such manner. For me it reduced the satisfaction and tragedy despite seemingly quite beautiful while showing the power of love.

This movie had a duration of 103 minutes without any mid or post end credit scenes. I did notice that it has copyright year 2025 which confused me as I thought this was a new film. After finding out more info, apparently it had its world premiere in 2025 Venice International Film Festival but only had its wide release in July 2026. The movie was written by Chad St. John and directed by Potsy Ponciroli whose previous works included Greedy People and the critically acclaimed Old Henry. To be honest, I thought he was experienced in directing music video cause it did feel like watching some of those with long story (I'd Do Anything For Love video from Meatloaf came to mind).

The main cast did their job nicely using facial expressions and body language with Alan Ritchson once again proving he is ready to be the lead action star. Unfortunately though, this movie did not have commercial success despite pretty well received by critics as I could understand general audience would have difficulty in enjoying such unique style. Aside from the above, there were also other cast such as Ben McKenzie (Line of Duty, Southland TV series etc) as police detective with Lionel Boyce (Project Hail Mary, Shell etc) and Amar Chadha-Patel (Willow TV series, Dashcam etc) as John's old military buddies or at least that's what we believed they were cause it was not clearly shown (unless we missed this detail). Oh the crew must also be applauded for their amazing job of creating realistic 1970s atmosphere, from the cars, music, make up and appearances.

Overall this was a unique, stylish action thriller with strong drama and minimum dialogues. It felt like watching a long music video with wonderful story telling and some brutal & violent action sequence. It was something that my wife and I enjoyed, though its ending was different from my expectation and not too satisfying for me personally. Btw it is definitely for adult as it has 17+ rating in Indonesia and R rated in the US with brief scenes (involving nudity) that were censored by the Indonesian censorship body. So if you are looking for a different kind of action thriller movie with such attribute, you are welcome to give it a try. But if you prefer the normal kind of full action revenge movie, then you would not be entertained by this. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars