How ’Motor City’ Helmer Ponciroli Found a Way to Wed Action, Music and an Almost Dialogue-Free Script: ‘I Think the Audience Is Smarter Than People Give Them Credit For.’

According To The variety Filmmaker Potsy Ponciroli (“Old Henry”) is back in Venice with “Motor City,” a film with about three lines of audible dialogue driven by needle-drops, a terrific score and a charismatic cast of Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley and Ben Foster in a love triangle and righteous revenge tale set in 1970s Detroit. The film opens, though, with intense action as Ritchson guns down some adversaries on a gritty street while a banger from 1982, David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” blasts out from the soundtrack. Quentin Tarantino used the song to great effect in “Inglourious Basterds,” and Ponciroli says Foster’s on-set playlist was the inspiration for using that song. “So [editor] Joe Galdo had the movie edited. And for that opening we tried 100 different songs, we tried score,” he says. But it was “Cat People” from Foster’s playlist that stuck in his head. The images of what looks like violent retribution match perfectly with the lyric “putting out fire with gasoline.” “It was such a vibe of the film,” says Ponciroli. “And then trying to clear that song, you know, it was terrifying.” “Motor City” is the tale of John Miller (Ritchson), a former Army Ranger working in a Detroit plant. He falls in love with Sophia (Woodley), who dumps rising drug kingpin Reynolds (Foster). But Reynolds, with dirty cops at his beck and call, including powerful detective Savick (Pablo Schreiber), sets up John, who goes to jail. Reynolds lies to Sophia about John, and marries her. This sets up a truly epic revenge tale involving John’s old Army buddies and a lot of great action. But with no audible dialogue, until two lines at the end. Despite the challenges behind a film written as a silent movie, Ponciroli had been vying to direct the film for a long time, but it wasn’t until the last couple of years did he have the chance to board it. Chad St. John wrote the script. “Chad St. John did such an amazing job of kind of setting the scene and painting this picture… but will it translate?” worries the helmer. “I think I went in a little naive in thinking, ‘Yeah, of course it would translate.’” Ponciroli didn’t want this to feel gimmicky or obvious about hiding dialogue when people are talking — for example, there’s a scene in which Det. Kent (Ben McKenzie) and Sophia talk at a restaurant. The camera pulls back across the eatery and behind a grand piano while we see them in a heated exchange as a musician (one of the film’s exec producers, Jack White), plays. “It was really playing with the scenes and trying to find that good balance of how do you hide it without hiding it, without making you feel like it’s hidden. So there were really only two spots” in the script that he had to innovate around, “but the script was so well done from the beginning.” “Reacher” star Ritchson was the only actor attached to the film when Ponciroli came on board. He wanted Woodley for the female lead. “So one Saturday morning, I think I called her at 8 a.m. her time, and I said, ‘Hey, I have the script. There’s no dialogue. It’s ’70s Detroit, and it’s this love revenge, drama, action. And she’s like, ‘This sounds incredible. Please, let me read it.’ And so I sent it to her. She called me 55 minutes later, and she’s like, ‘Please, let me do this movie, please, please, please!’” And then Foster was next. “Who’s the enemy that could also get Shailene? And I’m a humongous fan of Ben Foster. He lives in Nashville, weirdly, and I live in Nashville, and so they sent me a meeting with him. He read the script. I went and had lunch with him, and for about two hours, he was actually standing up in the restaurant next to my table, acting out like these moments,” Ponciroli says. He also enthuses about also casting Lionel Boyce (“The Bear”) and Amar Chadha-Patel as the ex-Rangers buddies, and Schreiber as the detective on the take, who gets into a vicious brawl with Ritchson in an elevator. “Pablo is just phenomenal. … Ben Foster is not a true physical match for Alan, he’s more of a mental match. That’s where Pablo comes in. Because Pablo is massive. [He is about 6’ 5” to Ritchson’s muscular 6’ 3”.] So that elevator fight, I feel was like finally those two giants get to clash. And so I think we got to see the smarter guy battle, and then the physical guys battle, which was kind of nice.” He hopes the Venice crowd will appreciate the film. “I think the audience is smarter than people give them credit for. I heard one network was looking for two-screen entertainment, which is something that you could watch and be on your phone at the same time. And I want to make the opposite of that. I want to make something that you have to watch, you haven’t checked your phone in an hour, and you don’t realize it.”