Even Reacher heat couldn’t save Alan Ritchson’s near-silent actioner at the box office
After a years-delayed run from the festival circuit, Alan Ritchson’s near-silent revenge film has underwhelmed on its US opening.
Let’s have a proper look at what’s gone awry with Motor City, Alan Ritchson’s newest attempt to dominate the action genre. Despite plenty of pre-release build-up and Ritchson’s star power, the film has landed with the kind of thud you don’t want to hear in a cinema lobby. It’s been quite the journey for this oddball revenge thriller, which spent ages making the rounds on the festival circuit before finally showing up in the States in June 2026.
Motor City took in just $1.625 million from around 1,600 US cinemas on opening weekend.
Plot, Style, and the Silence Issue
Helmed by Potsy Ponciroli and penned by Chad St. John, Motor City is set in 1970s Detroit, with Ritchson front and centre as John Miller—a bloke who manages to get both unlucky and foolish in impressive fashion by falling for a gangster’s girlfriend. He’s swiftly stitched up for something he didn’t do, thrown behind bars, and emerges later with the sort of chip on his shoulder that only cinema can truly understand. Cue the slow, furious build-up to revenge.
If you were expecting loads of witty exchanges or Tarantino-style monologues, you’ll be disappointed. Motor City resolutely keeps its mouth shut for most of the runtime—dialogue has been practically banished. Instead, the film leans on its visuals, the mood-setting music, and the actors to get the job done. That approach generated a certain curiosity when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival (August 2025), but any hope of the silence-as-artistry thing bringing in big numbers hasn’t panned out.
Cast, Reception, and Ritchson’s Daftly Busy Schedule
The ensemble’s stacked: Shailene Woodley (the gangster’s doomed girlfriend), Ben Foster, Ben McKenzie, Pablo Schreiber, Lionel Boyce, and Amar Chadha-Patel are all in the mix. But even with credible talent on screen and a not-boring premise, the film’s opening US box office was nowhere near what the studio (RLJE Films) needed to justify the wait. Whether that’s down to the minimal talking or the fact it hung about on the shelf for yonks, who knows?
The reviews, for what it’s worth, fell in the ‘could be worse, could be better’ bucket. Rotten Tomatoes has the critics at 65% and audiences on 69%, and IMDb users have stuck it with a 6.2/10. That’s polite applause rather than wild cheering, really.
No one will be writing off Alan Ritchson just yet, mind. Thanks to his turn as Jack Reacher on Prime Video, he’s mostly defined by that gruff, towering presence—now a staple in action telly. He’s currently shooting Reacher Season 4 and is lined up for the (possibly riskier) Neagley spin-off. Motor City might have stumbled, but Ritchson absolutely hasn’t parked his career here.