Alan Ritchson's new thriller runs 103 minutes on about five lines of dialogue

Let’s get straight to it: Alan Ritchson and Jack Reacher are basically joined at the hip. The bloke’s four seasons deep into Prime Video’s biggest action series, and has dialled that character in so convincingly — boots, one-liners, hard stares, the lot — that it’s almost strange to see him do anything else. Reacher made him a proper action star, and the whole thing lives and dies on Ritchson’s ability to talk you down before he knocks you flat. Which is precisely why his new film, Motor City, feels like someone’s flipped the table just to see what lands upright.

Motor City runs 103 minutes yet barely cracks five lines of actual spoken dialogue throughout the entire film.

A Revenge Story Minus the Chatter

Ritchson’s still the man to cross if you want to risk broken teeth, but in Motor City you barely get a handful of words out of him. No, seriously — the whole film reportedly scrapes by on about five lines of dialogue. Not five scenes; five lines. That’s not showing off, that’s director Potsy Ponciroli (he did Old Henry, too) betting every penny on physical acting.

The setup’s classic revenge-thriller, but Ponciroli shifts it to 1970s Detroit. You’ve got John Miller (Ritchson), a tough-luck working man who falls for the wrong woman — specifically, the girlfriend of a local gangster. Cue a swift stitch-up, years in prison for something he didn’t do, and then, obviously, it’s time to start hunting everyone responsible as soon as he’s out. Shailene Woodley gets a proper turn as Sophia, and Ben Foster is the nasty piece of work who ruins Miller’s life. Plot-wise, you’ve seen this skeleton before, but the silence is what sets it apart. Instead of trading quips (as Reacher would), Ritchson has to sell every ounce of misery, rage, and sheer bloody-mindedness with just a stare or a fist. It’s all tension, clever use of sound, and a wildly good ‘70s rock soundtrack, courtesy of Jack White.

You can see why some have compared Ritchson here to a non-accented Schwarzenegger. And it actually works, because it never tips over into parody — just bruising, stripped-back filmmaking.

The Cast and the Vibe

• Alan Ritchson as John Miller
• Shailene Woodley as Sophia
• Ben Foster as the gangster antagonist
• With Pablo Schreiber, Ben McKenzie, Zoë Kravitz, and Natascha McElhone rounding things out

If you’re expecting another formulaic action flick, forget it. The supporting cast gives Motor City more shades than you usually get in this type of revenge film. The whole package feels less like someone dumped a generic rock soundtrack on a pile of fight scenes and more like a moody, two-hour music video that actually knows how to grip an audience.

Box Office Bruise, Streaming Surge

Now, about that release. When Motor City hit cinemas in July, it totally flopped — seriously, it took home about $3 million against a $30 million budget, which is rough by anyone’s standards. But that’s not where this story ends. Once it dropped on digital, the numbers flipped: it shot almost instantly into Amazon’s top ten, nestled in amongst Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and, of all things, Toy Story 5. Critics have it hovering at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences a nose ahead at 65%. So clearly, people are watching it, and — judging by those audience numbers — more are enjoying it than you’d guess from the box office disaster.

This is the sort of film that always plays better in your living room than in a bustling opening weekend crowd. It’s all slow-burn mood, rewards patience, and asks you to actually watch, not just listen for punchlines and explosions. That’s probably why it’s found its second wind now.

Alan Ritchson is busier than ever, with Reacher series four currently rolling out, plus new projects on the cards (including Runner with Owen Wilson, War Machines, The Man With the Bag, and Maelstrom). He’s got action hero nailed. But with Motor City, you finally get to see what he does when the script rips almost all the lines out.