Cinema from the Spectrum

When film emerged as an art form, there was no sound. Films had to rely exclusively on the visual image to convey multiple moods, attitudes, and feelings the filmmaker wanted to showcase.

Eventually, movies evolved to the point where they didn’t have to rely solely on the visuals, and as such the expression changed. Now, with cinema having multiple tools at its disposal, directors have started to set limitations to challenge the way they approach film.

While action films have become known for the silent protagonist for a long time through films like Mad Max, First Blood, The Man With No Name (Fistful of Dollars Trilogy) and recently the John Wick series. The films often had dialogue spoken by supporting characters in the world surrounding them to fill the silence. Motor City offers something completely different.

Motor City, like John Woo’s Silent Night strips the audio from the world surrounding the protagonists, names aren’t spoken, the film instead fashions itself on comic book imagery without the thought bubbles. While I do appreciate the approach Motor City has to the visuals with a sleek pulpy 1970s look and a larger than life star (Alan Ritchson), because the film has zero dialogue, the explosion has become longer. The pacing ends up being quite messy.

What makes Motor City appealing is the cast, both extremely expressive actors from Ben Mackenzie, Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster and Pablo Schiever who are dressed colourfully and unique enough to leave a lasting impact on the film. Where the film wanes is scripting issues and how by removing dialogue, this has made it harder on the director, Potsy Ponciroli to convey what seems to be a simple revenge plot without dialogue. It becomes a bit convoluted and hard as an audience member to fully get the character dynamics.

What this film does to separate itself from previous attempts, of an action film told only through visuals, is a soundtrack embedded into the fabric of the film; including songs curated and chosen by Jack White through his Third Man Records Label. Outside of that, a score loaded with bass triggers during extremely emotionally, resonant moments.

While I thought Motor City was fine, I hope this experiment continues and a director is able to make this way of filmmaking feel necessary and essential to the story. The problem with this approach is that while it yields great visuals, it often causes script issues because of what the limiter does to the plot. Even if an attempt does not fully work, i respect directors who move away from the safe way of making movies to do something that is out of their comfort zone. They might miss but at least they stay interesting.

All images via RLJE Films.

Directed by Potsy Ponciroli
Screenplay by Chad St. John
Produced by Greg Silverman, Jon Berg, Cliff Roberts, Chad St. John
Starring Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster, Pablo Schreiber
Premiere Date: August 30, 2025 (Venice)
Running Time: 103 minutes