Film Review: MOTOR CITY (2025): An Intense Action Movie That is Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before

Motor City Review

Motor City (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by Potsy Ponciroli, written by Chad St. John and starring Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster, Lionel Boyce, Amar Chadha-Patel, Pablo Schreiber, Dominic Bogart, Mister Fitzgerald, Rafael Cebrián, Ben McKenzie, Jack White, Elliott Mayer, Frank Rivers, Maceo Oliver, Jacqueline Tate, Vivia Font, Darius Jackson and Peter Epstein.

Filmmaker Potsy Ponciroli’s terrific new picture, Motor City, is set in late 1970’s Detroit and features an awesome storytelling technique that subtracts dialogue from almost all of the proceedings, only using spoken words to drive home key points in the film. This is the most fascinating action picture I’ve ever seen and although the performances are physically superb, the movie’s stylistic touches are simply groundbreaking as the movie relies on gritty images, music and sound effects to tell much of its crime-ridden tale. This is almost as perfect an action film as 1994’s The Professional.

Alan Ritchson is the star of the movie. He portrays John Miller, perhaps the most sympathetic bad guy in motion picture history. This film opens with Miller throwing a man from a rooftop onto a moving car. When we go back in time a bit, we see the love of Miller’s life is the beautiful, down-on-her-luck woman, Sophia (Shailene Woodley has never been more alluring). Miller and Sophia establish a powerful romance together. When Miller is arrested and sent to prison for inexplicably possessing large quantities of drugs, Sophia is left to struggle on her own, working as a waitress and failing to pay her rent in a satisfactory manner.

Enter Reynolds (Ben Foster), the gangster who set Miller up. Reynolds shows up at Sophia’s diner and makes a move and the two hit it off well enough for Sophia to get involved in a romantic relationship with him. When Miller gets wind of this in prison, he plans an escape from jail in order to get back what is rightfully his -the love of the mysterious Sophia. The prison break scene is quite effective and is one of many scenes that will please action fans with its intensity and overwhelming precision. Miller gets help from a buddy to bust out of jail and moves forward to try to find Sophia.

Ben McKenzie plays Detective Kent who is the cop that seems to suspect there’s more going on than meets the eye in the case of Miller’s imprisonment. Kent is soon killed which sets the plot off in a million different directions, all of which are well-constructed in the very smart screenplay that has some set pieces that will rank as the most effective action scenes of the year. Particularly noteworthy is the use of “Nights in White Satin,” a song that helps drive the plot more effectively than any dialogue could.

When Reynolds accidentally shoots someone, the plot thickens even more and the film becomes a tale of vengeance and retribution that is among the most confident pictures of its type to grace the big screen in some time. Except there’s never quite been a film like this before. One scene set at Christmastime ends with Woodley’s Sophia saying, “Merry f’n Christmas,” and though that is just one of about a dozen lines that are spoken in the movie, the line delivery is right on-point.

One can wait patiently to hear the lines or just give in to the movie’s well thought-out story and characters. Foster is at his best at a funeral in which he gets overly emotional with grief. This movie begs for the eventual face off between Miller and Reynolds and just when you think it’s over, there’s one more confrontation that seals the deal in terms of making this movie great.

Motor City works well and fires on all cylinders. That’s because of Potsy Ponciroli’s superb use of action set pieces to drive the story forward. Scenes where Sophia moves are so effective such as when she is dancing with one of her lovers and Sophia is a very memorable female character. At first, it may be surprising Woodley took a role like this until you see what she does with it. It’s an incredible characterization from one of our most underappreciated actresses.

The gentlemen are also phenomenal. Ritchson has never been better and breathes life into this unforgettable role. He’s larger than life so the movie is too when it needs to be. This film will captivate right from the opening scene and hold viewers’ attention without allowing even a second for the audience to come up for air. Motor City is a crime picture where all the images coalesce to tell a tale of heart-wrenching proportions where everyone will pay dearly for their actions. Nobody gets out alive or nobody escapes a dire fate which spins the characters’ lives out of control. Miller becomes a criminal, yet keeps the audience respecting his choices even when he takes drastic measures to try to get back to Sophia.

Ritchson may ultimately wind up making this film as good as it is because if he weren’t believable in his role, the whole movie would self-destruct. Same for Foster who creates the one we don’t want to root for, but can understand even if we don’t agree with the measures he takes to keep Sophia away from her past lover. Motor City is the type of movie that could get lost in the shuffle at the box-office, but it is nonetheless spellbinding to watch. A movie without dialogue could seem like a risky proposition from an artistic standpoint. Potsy Ponciroli has pulled it off and crafted, perhaps, one of the most effective action movies of all-time with scenes that will blow viewers through the back of the theater with their whopping levels of intensity. See it!

Rating: 9/10

Leave your thoughts on this Motor City review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons.

Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page.

Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Telegram, Mastodon, Flipboard, Bluesky, and Threads.