After nearly two decades in development, Potsy Ponciroli's revenge thriller Motor City has arrived, presenting a story that leans heavily on visual cues and a curated soundtrack rather than dialogue. Starring Alan Ritchson as an ex-Army Ranger framed and imprisoned, the film's narrative unfolds through performances, deliberate silences, and a selection of classic rock songs that become as integral to the plot as any spoken word. Ponciroli detailed his journey with the long-gestating project in a recent interview, touching on his collaboration with the cast, the deliberate use of music, and the unique challenges of a nearly silent film.
Genesis of Motor City
The project's path to the screen was arduous, with numerous directors and actors attached over the years before funding or other issues halted progress. Ponciroli first encountered the script through his agent and was immediately drawn to its distinctiveness. After an initial pitch that didn't result in him directing, the opportunity resurfaced when the original director departed. Ponciroli seized the chance, leveraging his extensive preparation time into what he described as his most effective pitch.
"When I got it, I pitched on it and got a second pitch, which is always good," Ponciroli explained. "Then it came down to me and another director. We went back and forth with the producers, and at the end it went to the other director, but it stuck with me."
Seven months later, the project became available again. "I was like, 'Oh, shit.' I called Jon Berg, the producer, and said, 'I sat with this thing for seven months now. Let me pitch again.' He said, 'I'd love to.' So I pitched him and (producer) Greg Silverman, and it was the best pitch of my life because I'd had all that time to prepare. They wanted me to meet with Alan [Ritchson]. He was already on board, so I drove home early from vacation, did the Zoom with Alan, they did my deal over the weekend, and I started work on Monday."
Directing Without Dialogue
The absence of dialogue presented a significant directorial challenge, requiring a focus on subtle performances and visual storytelling. Ponciroli emphasized that the goal was not to resort to exaggerated movements but to maintain a sense of realism.
"I didn't want anything to be pantomime. We're not overexaggerating movements to sell anything. It still has to be subtle and real," he stated. His approach involved extensive pre-production conversations with actors to deeply explore their characters. For Shailene Woodley, this included creating a personalized Spotify playlist to help her inhabit her role.
"We created a Spotify playlist, and we'd put songs on there, go through it, add songs, and figure out who her character is and what she listens to. It helped her get into, 'This is what I would listen to in the afternoon writing in a journal. This is what I'd listen to at a party at night,' things like that. I think it just helped her get into the feel of that character." This thorough preparation extended to the entire cast, fostering a collective understanding that allowed for creative freedom on set.
The lack of dialogue proved to be a compelling aspect for the actors involved. Ponciroli recounted a scene between Woodley and Ben Foster in a diner, which required them to convey reconciliation without a single word. His only direction was, "When you get in a fight with somebody you love, the first person to speak usually loses. Nobody wants to be the first person to say something."
The Power of Needle Drops
Music plays a pivotal role in Motor City, with specific songs chosen to punctuate key moments. Ponciroli and his editor, Joe Galdo, experimented with numerous tracks during the editing process. Some songs were integral from the outset, while others emerged organically.
"‘Nights in White Satin,’ that song had to be for the prison break. I edited it on paper before we even shot it," Ponciroli said. "We actually had to do a little bit of a song edit when the car comes through the gate to get to that crescendo at the end."
Other tracks, like Fleetwood Mac's “The Chain,” became essential after being integrated into a scene. "My editor, Joe Galdo, loves this era of music. We would sit in the edit, try 30 songs. I'd go home, he'd stay up until 2:00 in the morning and try 20 more. Things like ‘The Chain,’ we had edited that scene and were trying different songs. I came in the next day, and he goes, 'I didn't touch anything. Just check this out.' He laid ‘The Chain’ in there, and all those musical breaks and tempo changes, where it slows down and where it speeds up, just happened to land weirdly right. It was like, 'All right, we have to have 'The Chain' now.'"
Donny Hathaway's “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” was also a key choice, inspired in part by Ben Foster's on-set preparation. "Ben Foster gets all the credit because he had a boombox on set to get into character. In my mind, he played ‘Cat People’ on repeat, and he swears he didn't, but that was a song I kept picturing whenever he'd come in. That just felt like the vibe of the time and the texture and feel we were going with."
Visual Storytelling and Actor Collaboration
Beyond music, visual details such as tattoos and photographs were used to convey narrative information, with many of these elements present in the script from early stages. However, some sequences required creative solutions to bridge narrative gaps without dialogue. For a scene between Ben McKenzie and Shailene Woodley in a café, the filmmakers introduced a piano player, with the scene observed from his perspective to circumvent dialogue.
"My DP, John Matysiak, and I scoured New Jersey for locations and found this really cool café. It was like, 'Oh, well, this is high-end enough. It would have a piano player [played by Jack White]. What if we pull the camera back here, and we're actually seeing it from the POV of a piano player?' That gets us out of that cone of dialogue, and we hear it from the outside, or we see it from the outside. So things like that were kind of found in the moment. But the Ranger tattoos that was in the script originally."
Ponciroli has consistently worked with accomplished actors across his three feature films. He attributes this to seeking out talented individuals and fostering trust. "Look for actors that are phenomenal and trust them. I've been really lucky with the people who've said yes to work with me and trusted me, because you can get into a three-month project with somebody with all the right intentions, and it may turn out a different way. It's really nice to find people who want to collaborate and want to work."
Audience Takeaway
Ponciroli hopes audiences will be captivated by the film's action, particularly an intense elevator fight sequence that reportedly caused the entire theater to tense up during the premiere. More broadly, he encourages viewers to immerse themselves in the film's unique approach.
"The other part is, just don't go in expecting the... I wouldn't call it a gimmick of no dialogue. It's just a way to tell a story and a way to express these characters and their journey. Just commit to it. Don't look at your phone, don't look up. See it in the biggest, loudest room you can and just immerse yourself in this movie. It takes you on a 96-minute ride, and you come out, and you're like, 'All right, that was really fun.' It's a really fun, enjoyable, actiony, dramatic ride."
Motor City premieres in theaters on Friday, July 24.