With only five lines of dialog in the entire film, Motor City plays out like a mix between Sam Peckinpah, John Woo, and Buster Keaton. It's a visceral thrill so committed to its stylistic gimmick that it makes us question who needs dialog anyway.

The plot, in all its simplicity, is the story of boy meets girl, boy beats the hell out girl's abusive ex, ex turns out to be a drug lord who frames the boy for a crime he didn't do, boy loses girl, boy gathers personal army to take revenge.

You know, the usual.

Sure, it's a little long, and yes, some of the methods it uses to keep the gag going are a little twee. But it rarely matters when things are this much fun.

A big reason why all of this works is down to Alan Ritchson, an often underutilized and charismatic actor who knows how to make the most out of his mammoth frame. A lesser actor would settle for unstoppable brute force. Ritchson, instead, allows himself to be vulnerable and emotional, even when it would be easier to act macho.

As a result, Motor City finds its heart and soul in Ritchson's face and eyes, which communicate the pain and longing for revenge better than any action montage.

Which isn't to say that area is lacking, far from it. Motor City is an unrelenting thrill. A stylistic knockout of epic proportions. It leans into the gratuitous to deliver the same kind of love letter to Detroit that Michael Bay would have made for heartland Americana.

Watch, for example, how eagerly the film stages greased up men in tight shirts working heavy machinery as of it was an ultra violent version of Dirty Dancing. It's fun to see equal opportunity eye candy this way. Especially as action films of this kind are pornographic in their own way to begin with.

After the screening, I heard some were burnt out by the excessive and non-stop stylistic barrage. Personally, I couldn't get enough of it. As with Michael Baybor Baz Luhrmann, director Potsy Ponciroli finds nuance in maximalism. The whole thing plays out like a Meatloaf song, where everything is a chorus, but it speaks to that teenage sensibility that never went away.

Add to that the pulse-pounding action, including a whopper of a fight in an elevator, solid work from fantastic character actors, and a heck of a silly finale, and Motor City turns into one of the most purely entertaining action thrillers of the year.