"Motor City" Movie Review: Spoiler Free!

A movie titled Motor City should feel like Detroit in its bones and that’s where my review starts. With a real frustration about authenticity. I’m Jared from Woodward Cinema and the Cookin’ With Gas podcast, and I’m breaking down why this mystery screening was a blast while still leaving me hung up on one glaring choice: And That decision isn’t just trivia, it changes the texture of the streets, the mood of the scenes, and how much the title feels earned.

Then we get to what works: Motor City is a creative, music-driven revenge thriller with almost no dialogue and no character names, and it somehow stays clear, intense, and fun. Jack White’s soundtrack and the score do heavy narrative lifting, while the cast, led by Alan Ritchson with Ben Foster bringing serious heat, sells emotion through movement and expression instead of speech. I also spotlight two standout sequences you’ll want to watch for!

Listen now, subscribe for more reviews, and share your take: does a film’s shooting location matter to you as much as the story and performances do?

Transcript

The Big Gripe: Not Shot In Detroit

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Yo, what is up, everyone? Jared here for Waterword Cinema and the Cooking with Gas podcast. That is C-O-O-K-I-N, and that is exactly what I'm going to do in this review for a movie that I had a special mystery screening for on Monday. This movie was called Motor City, and it is worth a view. I'm going to tell you why right now. Now, being from the Motor City myself, a lot of people that are watching this are probably from the Motor City. I have only one gripe about this film, and that is that it was not shot here in the Motor City. So this movie was shot in New Jersey mainly. There are some exterior shots that were done here in Detroit, obviously. You get the Fox Theater and other iconic buildings that are brought into this movie in the background, but ultimately the movie was shot in New Jersey due to budget constraints and tax incentives that are available in New Jersey that you do not get here in Michigan. Michigan used to have a very, very lucrative tax incentive program for movies back around 2006-2008. I want to say it went for probably about eight years.

Michigan Film Incentives And Lost Productions

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I've worked with Hugh Jackman in movies like Real Steel. I was super, super lucky to be an individual that was involved in these film tax incentives. And when they took those tax incentives away, movies stopped coming here and they will not come here to shoot because it costs too much money and they can do it other places. Georgia, Texas, Vancouver in Canada is a major place that movies and television shows go to shoot because it's much cheaper. It's absolutely heartbreaking that this happened when it happened. Being an individual who wanted to be in movies myself, it was like having the rug ripped out from underneath me. I was going on auditions all the time, and then it just stopped because a new governor came in and they took those tax incentives away, and now movies will not come here to shoot. And this is a huge, huge problem because you get movies like Motor City that have to be filmed in the location that they are based. You cannot call your movie Motor City and not shoot it in the damn motor city. You cannot have New Jersey play as the Motor City. People are gonna know that. And authenticity is freaking key. Okay. This is a major, major issue with me in this movie. Is it going to make me uh bash the movie? For this reason, yes. For that reason of it not shooting in Detroit, I will bash it for that reason only, because everything else works in this film. It was a fun time in the theater. It I had a blast, and what I'm about to tell you is probably gonna take you back a little bit because there is almost zero dialogue in this film. The characters do not have character names. When they get brought onto the screen, nobody is saying, hey, and then introducing a character's name or even speaking to that character. It is probably there's maybe five scenes in this whole film where dialogue is actually spoken and it's not a conversation between any of the characters, it's like a big F you to someone or screaming or something along those lines, something very quick and sharp. There is almost zero dialogue in this film, however, the soundtrack is awesome. This movie takes place in the 1970s, I'd say from 1970 to say 77. They don't just use 1970s music, they also have 80s music that is involved. The soundtrack was actually created by Jack White. He was the soundtrack director, he was also an executive producer on this film. So that's another thing that kind of like takes me back. If I was Jack White, I'd say, okay, I'll do the work, but shoot it in my hometown, you know? So it is what it is. The movie's not shot here in Michigan. It's an absolute tragedy and it's unforgivable, in my opinion. But you do get some cool uh exterior shots of certain iconic buildings in the city of Detroit that'll make you say, Oh, that's cool. But when you're down the side streets in this movie, you can absolutely tell that this is not Detroit, and that kind of put a little bit of a damper on it for me. And that's just the truth. Now let's get into the positives of

Cast Shoutouts And Performance Praise

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this film. So this film stars Alan Richardson. You probably know him from being Jack Reacher mainly on the Amazon Prime series Reacher. You have uh Ben Foster, who let me tell you this Ben Foster is one of the most underrated and underappreciated actors in my lifetime. Everything that that guy does, he crushes. And he's never really been given the chance to be a lead in many movies that have given him the script or something where he can show exactly how good he can be as a lead. And that's tragic because he can be a lead. I know he can, he's that talented, and in every movie he he is in, he crushes it. And a lot of times he does play the villain or the bad guy, and in this, it's no different. He's the villain, he's the bad guy, he does an unreal job, and you want the guy to get his medicine asap in this movie. So you got Ailen Richardson, you got Ben Foster, you got-I always mispronounce her name, Shailen Woodley. She is in this, she plays the love interest, and you have Pablo Schreiber, and you have Ben McKenzie. You say, Ben McKenzie, that sounds familiar. Ryan Atwood from the OC is in this movie. He plays like a detective. I wouldn't say he has a huge role or anything like that, but it was still cool to see him in it. I do like myself some Ben McKenzie in some films. It always takes me back. And he's also a solid actor. So everyone in this film, uh, they're great actors, and they were casted perfectly. I had no problem with any of the cast, especially when you have a film with no dialogue, and the characters have to kind of play off one of each one another in a different way, shape, and fashion, more by going off their body movements, their body language, their facial expressions.

Almost No Dialogue, Music Does The Work

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They all kill it. Now, in the beginning of the film, I was a little concerned about the no dialogue. There were some scenes where the characters just, you know, they wouldn't be looking at each other or being in that position without speaking to one another. There's not many scenes that are like that in the movie at all, but I did notice within the first 25 minutes, you start to go, yeah, they would be talking to each other. But they do play it off really well, and that's the whole point of this movie. I am not going to knock it too much for the no dialogue because that is a big part of the whole reason this movie was made. It's different, it's creative, and I'm here for it. And I would say within the first 12 minutes, you don't even know that there's no dialogue. The movie starts off so fast that within those first few minutes, you don't even realize people haven't even spoken a word yet. So don't go into the movie thinking, man, this is gonna be boring. These characters aren't going to talk to each other. The soundtrack takes care of all of that. And when you're sitting in your seat and you can vibe to a good tune while you're watching something solid on the big screen at the same time, that's something you don't get all the time. The score is huge in this film, also. One thing I will say is the audience was totally engaged and immersed in this movie the whole time. And you know that because during certain scenes, if there is no dialogue and the score is the only thing that's playing in the background, and it's not some heavy, loud bass type of score, it's a little bit more mellower and quieter. I could hear a feather drop in this theater. It was that quiet. So you knew that the audience was completely engaged in everything that was going on in this movie. Now, for the story, the story is pretty straightforward, and I'm not gonna get into a bunch of spoilers or anything like that because the movie isn't released and I want other people to enjoy it. I do have two scenes that I want to break down for you people, uh, not necessarily break down, but tell you why I enjoyed them without giving away exactly what happens in those scenes. But when it comes to the story, Richardson plays a mechanic who falls in love with a woman,

Plot Basics: Jealousy And Revenge

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and it appears that him and Ben Foster are either friends or acquaintances. The problem is that's Ben Foster's woman. And something happens to where Richardson steals her away. As you can imagine, Ben Foster does not like that. Ben Foster then frames Richardson's character for a crime which puts him in jail for a very, very long time. This is a movie about jealousy, it's a movie about revenge, plotting. It is a very, very fun revenge type of flick. If you enjoy that type of stuff, you will really, really enjoy this movie. Now, none of these characters, like I said, have any names. So when I am speaking about a scene, I'm gonna use the actor's real name because none of them have actual names. Which is wild. You don't get movies like that at all. Now, as this movie gets into the second and the third act, you don't even realize that that there's no dialogue going on. Um, in the beginning, like I said, there'll be characters who walk up to each other and instead of speaking to one another, they use their body language, they'll pull out a pack of cigarettes, pop it open, and give it to the other character, and they'll kind of just look at each other, or they'll be sipping on a cup of coffee. Now, these scenes don't go on for too long, so you don't have to worry about them being awkward and drawn out. They're there just to build the story into the second and the third act, and it does just that because come into the second and the third act, it is so breakneck speed, you don't even need any dialogue. Now, there is a prison escape scene in this movie that is one of the funnest, coolest, most action-packed scenes I've watched in a movie all year. If you go to see this movie, be on the lookout for this scene when Richardson get attempts to escape from the prison. It is super

Standout Action Scenes Without Spoilers

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fun. He has his allies that are trying to help him break out, and the things that they do and how creative they get in order to get him out of prison is something, it's something to actually watch and experience yourself. So be on the lookout for that scene. And the one scene that really, really stood out to me, there is a elevator fight scene in this movie that comes at you like just a freight train. Now, when you have these smaller uh areas that you're trying to film in, it's very important that you don't get all convoluted and so up close to these characters that you don't know what the heck is going on. The director did an awesome job at not only putting you, the audience, right there in the elevator, but also keeping enough distance for you to see exactly what's going on during this brutal, brutal fight scene that happens in this elevator and it goes on for minutes. I'm not gonna tell you what happens, but I'll say you'll probably be watching the scene and you'll think, oh, this is gonna happen, because they do foreshadow something that might occur, and then they rip that rug out right from underneath you and totally do something different during the scene, which was awesome to me. When you get that foreshadowing and you get it right, you can, I don't know, think, oh, I'm sweet, I got it right, you know, I figured out what was going on. But when they pull that rug out and they give you something different, that's what it's all about. And when I was in that scene, I thought I had it figured out and exactly what was going on, and I was completely wrong with how that scene was going to end, and the audience was back in their seat gasping when the conclusion of that scene happened. So, all in all, when it comes down to Motor City, this movie spans generations, it focuses on the 1970s, but as it moves forward, it goes into the future. So be prepared to take a little bit of trips through time and music while you're watching this movie. But again, the only negative thing that I have to say about this film is that it wasn't shot on location in Detroit. I need it to be here in order to truly, truly respect the fact that it's called Motor City. That's the one thing that takes me

Final Grade, Who Will Love It

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back. That's the reason I have to give it the grade that I am going to give it at the end of this review, which is coming up shortly. So if you enjoy uh creative films, quick uh it's about to say it's about an hour and 40, hour and 45 minutes, which is really nice, especially if you went and seen The Odyssey and you had to sit in that for three hours, which was an A plus film, but it's just super, super long. Motor City gives things to you real quick, real fast, breakneck speed, and you are going to enjoy this film if you go into it knowing exactly what to expect. I give this film a B plus. That is what I what I have to give it. If this film was shot in Detroit, there is a solid possibility that this would have been my fifth A that I'd be given this year, and that's just insane. 2026 has been ripping out amazing movies this year. I I cannot wait to for what's happening in the future. I'm gonna be doing a most anticipated movie breakdown of the year of my most anticipated movies that are going to be remaining throughout this whole year. I'll be doing that real soon for you all.

Subscribe, Where To Find Me, Your Turn

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So for everybody out there, if you haven't subscribed to Woodward Cinema or Cooking With Gas, please do so. Woodward Cinema is on YouTube right now. Subscribe to Woodward Cinema on YouTube, Cookin' With Gas. You can get at me on all of your streaming platforms, you can get at me on Facebook, X, Instagram. I'm on all of them. Look up Cookin' With Gas. Look up Woodward Cinema. Go see Motor City. It is super fun. You will have a blast in that theater, I promise you. Again, thanks to everyone who watches these videos. Thanks to everyone who listens to Cookin' With Gas and gives me reviews or goes onto my sites. Tell me what you guys think of Motor City. If you got the chance to see it during the screenings as well that were out there this past week, uh, tell me if if when you go to see it, how you feel. Did you like the no dialogue? Was it a little too weird for you? Get in the comments, let me know what you guys think. I'm Jared for Woodward Cinema and the Cookin' With Gas podcast. We will be seeing each other soon, so stay tuned.