Review: "Detroit"

Political correctness is a sordid game I refuse to play. But even I admit I’m uncomfortable with a feature film about the 1967 Detroit riots with an almost entirely white creative team.

Director Kathryn Bigelow reteams with her “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker” screenwriter, Mark Boal, in a film that attempts to look at the watershed civic unrest from the perspective of African-Americans who suffered at the hands of brutal police tactics. While most of the cast is black, the movie struggles to get over a sense of existing more to soothe white guilt than chronicle a racist tragedy.

Indeed, the first words we see or hear refer to the 1967 riots, also known as the 12th Street riots, as “the Detroit Rebellion.” I don’t know any serious historian who would use that term, which refers to an organized uprising designed to topple the power hierarchy, either by replacing the exiting government or splitting off from it.

Somehow, I doubt even the people who took to the streets, throwing rocks and setting storefronts on fire, would have called their actions a rebellion. They were simply enraged at being continually abused and stepped upon, and reached a point where they didn’t want to take it anymore.

I admired the film but got stuck on the fact this wasn’t the movie I was expecting. This is not a comprehensive look at the root causes of the unrest, the tactics undertaken by authorities to quell the violence, or the aftermath suffered by a community that struggles to this day to overcome that dark moment in history.

Indeed, if any moment can be pinpointed as the tipping point of when the great modern divide in America began -- between cities and suburbs, whites and those of color, blue and red -- the ’67 riot is it.

Although Bigelow and Boal start their story in the streets, this is really the tale of the Algiers Motel incident. Largely forgotten now amidst the bigger backdrop of the riots, this was the case of Detroit police officers, state police and national guardsmen detaining a group of young black men and two 18-year-old white women after gunshots were heard from the annex of the motel, a party spot a few blocks away from the mayhem.

Over the course of several hours, the suspects -- who were never charged with anything -- were beaten, abused, assaulted. It became clear the white officers were angered by white girls dallying with black boys. Three black men were fatally shot, with trumped-up excuses after the fact to justify self-defense by the officers. It was, as depicted in the film, essentially torture.

Anthony Mackie plays one of the victims, a recently discharged Army soldier, and Hannah Murray plays the mouthy girl. Algee Smith is Larry, lead singer of an up-and-coming Motown group called The Dramatics, who gets caught up along with his manager (Jacob Latimore).

Baby-faced Will Poulter is the central villain as the police officer directing the interrogation; earlier in the day we watched him pump two shotgun blasts into the back of a looter carrying groceries. Jay Reynor and Ben O’Toole are his wing men, dim and deliberate, respectively.

John Beyega is more or less the central character as Mel Dismukes, an African-American man working as a private security officer protecting a nearby business. He continually inserts himself into situations, using his uniform and officious demeanor to stave off some of the worst law enforcement abuses of black folks.

The film unequivocally presents Dismukes as a hero, when in fact he was charged with abusing the Algiers suspects along with the three police. All were found not guilty (though not, as the movie condenses, in the same trial).

Exactly what happened in the motel remains sketchy even today, though the movie carelessly presents its own version with crisp black-and-white lines, knowing this is what will be etched into the public consciousness.

From a narrative and technical standpoint, “Detroit” is a very well-crafted film that strings the audience’s emotions along with an expert hand. What’s less clear is who this movie is about, or for.

Review: "Black Nativity"

The Christmas pageant is a familiar holiday tradition for most everyone who grew up in America, and “Black Nativity” is the closest cinematic replication one could think of. There’s singing, dancing, some mild religiosity, and family tensions giving way to warm togetherness.

Writer/director Kasi Lemmons loosely adapts the stage musical version of the Nativity story told with an all-black cast written by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. It’s almost an homage to Hughes himself, with the main character, Langston Cobbs (Jacob Latimore), bearing his name and legacy.

The film is colorful, joyous and heartfelt. The characters exist more as archetypes than flesh-and-blood beings, but that’s part and parcel of adapting mythology into modern times. The Cobbs family also takes center stage, while the tale of Mary and Joseph (Grace Gibson and Luke James) gets turned into the backdrop.

Think of it this way: various people wander on and off the stage, declaring themselves to us in song and prose, and then they all get together at the end to usher us on our way back into our own regular lives. We relate to them not as actual people who we might stumble into on the street, but as representations of ourselves, both our ideals and our failings. Their role is not to convince us they could be real, but to embody our innermost desires for ourselves, and how we often fail to live up to them.

And, it should be said, the music is very, very good. Much of it is gospel influenced, which shouldn’t surprise as the main character is a preacher and the last act takes place in his church on Christmas Eve. I particularly liked the songs “Fix Me” and “Be Grateful.”

Latimore is a well-known R&B artist, and other famous performers surface as cast members such as Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige and Nas. But mainstream actors Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett and Tyrese Gibson also croon in, showing off pipes we didn’t know they had. (Whitaker in particular shines with a gorgeous, smooth baritone.)

Langston Cobbs is a youth from Baltimore, where he lives with his single mother, Naimi (Hudson). She lost her job and is struggling to make ends meet, and their brownstone is about to be foreclosed. She sends her son to stay with her estranged grandparents in Harlem, with the tacit implication that he may be there for a while.

Langston has never met his grandparents, or even knew they existed. It’s a big culture shock. While not a bad kid, he’s used to a certain amount of independence and sass, and neither are much brooked in the home of Cornell and Angela Cobbs (Whitaker and Bassett). Rev. Cobbs is a man who wears his dignity like a fine suit that he cares for well, much like the pocket watch he was personally given by Martin Luther King Jr.

There’s a mysterious big hurt between the elders Cobbses and their daughter, and Langston spends the rest of the story trying to ferret out what it is. Gibson plays Tyson, a street tough who offers some advice and help, though not necessarily in pursuits that will have a positive outcome.

While some might be annoyed that the story of Jesus takes a backseat to the Cobbs clan, I found their company more like an embrace that feels awkward at first, but becomes warmer as the audience and movie clutch harder. Bring on the show.