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Actor Alan Ritchson (left). Jack White (Photo: Michigan Central)
"Motor City," a Detroit action film, will make its world premiere on Aug. 30 at the Venice International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival in early September.
The Toronto International Film Festival writes that Grammy-winning Detroit native Jack White serves as the film’s music director, "curating a propulsive rock score."
The film stars Ben Foster, Shailene Woodley, and Alan Ritchson, and was shot in New Jersey, according to the Detroit News. Filming major productions in Detroit was quite common back in the days when the state had a program offering incentives to filmmakers. The Michigan film industry is pushing to renew that program.
The Toronto International Film Festival describes the film this way:
Part operatic fever dream, part adrenaline-soaked action epic, Motor City is a visceral revenge tale set against the industrial backdrop of 1970s Detroit. John Miller (Alan Ritchson from TV’s Reacher), a blue-collar auto worker, has his world ripped apart when he’s framed by a ruthless local gangster (a supremely unsettling Ben Foster) and sent to prison. Emerging hardened and haunted years later, Miller sets out to reclaim the life — and love (Shailene Woodley) — that was stolen from him, unleashing a violent reckoning in the process.
Dialogue takes a back seat as stylized visuals, brutal action choreography, and magnetic performances drive the story forward, with raw human emotion conveyed as much through silence as sound. Elsewhere, inspired needle drops both punctuate scenes and provide narrative context.
