In many ways, \u201cMotor City\u201d is a familiar addition to the action movie canon.<\/p>\n
Set in 1970s Detroit, it follows an auto worker (Alan Ritchson) who is framed by a local gangster (Ben Foster) and sent to prison. When he is released years later, he sets out on a mission to exact revenge and reconnect with his former love (Shailene Woodley). Revenge, love, betrayal. These are all recognizable ingredients of genre storytelling, and \u201cMotor City\u201d makes full use of them.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s just one catch: It does so with practically zero dialogue. The number of spoken lines in the film can, in fact, be counted on one hand. According to director Potsy Ponciroli (\u201cOld Henry\u201d), it was that combination of new and old, familiar and experimental, that made \u201cMotor City\u201d such a compelling project.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the beauty of [screenwriter Chad St. John\u2019s] script,\u201d Ponciroli told Executive Awards Editor Steve Pond at TheWrap\u2019s 2025 Toronto International Film Festival Studio. \u201cThis is a movie we\u2019ve seen. You\u2019ve seen the revenge story. You\u2019ve seen the love triangle. You\u2019ve seen those beats. Giving the audience at least that head start allowed us to really play with and deliver things in a sparse way. We don\u2019t have to force-feed anything.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n For actors Woodley and Foster, the film\u2019s extremely sparse approach to dialogue gave them the freedom and permission to craft each scene on set as if it were, as Woodley remarked, \u201cwet clay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s intoxicating,\u201d the actress said of signing on to do a film with virtually no spoken lines. \u201cThere\u2019s something really beautiful about the possibility of the unknown. That\u2019s my favorite part of being an actor: Letting the moment inform what the moment needs to be, instead of coming in with a premeditated idea of what the moment will absolutely be. Potsy is brilliant and kind and generous with his collaborators, and gave us the space and time to really mold the wet clay.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there\u2019s a script with [spoken] words, you do go in with a more solid idea of, \u2018These are the moments. These are the beats. These are the things we need to hit,’\u201d Ponciroli added, echoing Woodley\u2019s sentiments. \u201cOn this, I got to come in and just sit in it. It was a whole different process.\u201d<\/p>\n Foster was similarly excited by the possibilities that the \u201cMotor City\u201d script presented, and even more so by the freedom Ponciroli allowed him, Woodley, Ritchson and their other co-stars on set. \u201cCharacter is behavior. For me, a red pen is always exciting to have with a script,\u201d he explained, noting that his approach to making a movie is far more open and freeform than when he is preparing for a Broadway play or stage production.<\/p>\n \u201cIn film, you want something a little bit more electric, to attack and just tangle,\u201d Foster observed. \u201cSo we tangled, and Potsy encouraged that. It was joyful for us to just jam, like a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018Motor City\u2019 Team Unpacks the \u2018Intoxicating\u2019 Challenge of Making an Action Movie With Almost No Dialogue<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In many ways, \u201cMotor City\u201d is a familiar addition to the action movie canon. Set in 1970s Detroit, it follows an auto worker (Alan Ritchson) who is framed by a local gangster (Ben Foster) and sent to prison. When he is released years later, he sets out on a mission to exact revenge and reconnect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1956684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[315220,330281,339748,339747,335415],"class_list":["post-2000679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-alan-ritchson","tag-ben-foster","tag-motor-city","tag-potsy-ponciroli","tag-shailene-woodley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ryan-Reynolds-Dwayne-Johnson-Tessa-Thompson-and-More-Set-Panels.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1956684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n