A powerful film about a sorrowful moment in American history: Detroit

Kathryn Bigelow first in The Hurt Locker and now in Detroit has shown that she is the absolute master at directing scenes that put us in the midst of chaos, confusion, danger, and disaster - in this case the Detroit riots of 1967. The movie, like Gaul, is divided into 3 parts: Act One follows the breakout of rioting in the tight, terribly impoverished black neighborhoods in Detroit. We are right in the midst of the action for a nearly unbearable 45 minutes, and while the movie is highly sympathetic to the frustration of the black community we also see how terrifying and confusing it was for law enforcement during the riots (that includes Detroit and state police, firefighters, and National Guard) as well as the terror for the residents of Detroit trying trying to live their lives in peace and safety. Part 2 focuses on what became the central image of colliding forces, rioting citizens and a sadistic and brutal police force: the Algiers Hotel incident. For the next hour or so we are inside this strange hotel in the midst of the black neighborhood in Detroit, following a few of the residents, two of whom become central figures in the movie, an aspiring Motown singer and his friend-manager. Police suspect a sniper has been shooting from the hotel, they storm the building, shoot to death one of the residents, and brutalize and terrorize over a course of hours a group of ten whom they've rounded up - a completely gripping, chilling story, based on fact as closely as possible, a difficult task in that the facts were and still are in dispute. The third "act" of the film involves the trial of 3 police officers accused of murder and various other crimes in the wake of Algiers; for those who don't know the outcome, I won't give anything away - but I do have to note that the film has lost its steam by this point and the writer-director team have trouble, in limited time, w/ presenting the conflicting testimony at the trial (it's not even clear precisely who is charged; one sympathetic character, a black security guard who'd drifted into the Algiers to try to help, seems to be charged at one point and later not). Despite my quibbles, Detroit is a powerful film on a sorrowful moment in American history, and it bears obvious resonance today.