Needle Drop as we know it was born in 1969, with the instantly iconic use of “Born to Be Wild” in “Easy Rider.” Of course, there were precedents. The first use of a rock ‘n’ roll song in a movie was “Rock Around the Clock,” played over the opening credits of “The Blackboard Jungle” (1955), and by any measure, the godfather of the needle drop was Kenneth Anger, whose 28-minute “Scorpio Rising,” from 1963, about bikers, drugs, Jesus and leather queers turned pop, was, in my opinion, a top 10 hit movies. never made, invented the ecstatic juxtapositions that inspired the leading cinematic poet of the needle drop, Martin Scorsese. Which filmmakers have given us the biggest needle drops? The answer is Scorsese (Kenneth Anger’s aesthetic son), Tarantino (Scorsese’s son), Paul Thomas Anderson (Tarantino’s son) and, on a very different topic, the Michael Mann of “Manhunter” (a film I will write about next week, when it is released for its 40th anniversary).

I quickly review this story because there is a needle drop in “Motor City,” the surprisingly new crime thriller (it has love, violence, suspense, but no dialogue), which deserves comparison with the work of all those other directors. So I want to make it clear that we are not just talking about a simple needle drop, but rather the visionary hypnotic type.

Set in Detroit in 1977, the film introduces us to John Miller (Alan Ritchson), an ex-convict and Vietnam veteran who is big and taciturn enough to appear to be halfway between Bruce Banner and the Hulk. But with his GI Joe haircut, he tries to walk the right path. We have seen that he is in love with Sophia (Shailene Woodley), his girlfriend, to whom he gets down on one knee to propose (an offer she gratefully accepts). And we’ve witnessed a rather strange crime where his old green 1970s sports car was stolen… and then returned. At this point, we like Miller and Sophia enough to want to see them happy.

Then the familiar, deliberate plucking of an acoustic guitar appears on the soundtrack, and we recognize the introduction to “The Chain,” Fleetwood Mac’s great song from 1977. In a scene that unfolds in slow motion, a tear gas canister is thrown into the couple’s home, tearing the veil of domestic bliss. The police detectives burst in and demand to see Miller, who, as far as we know, has done nothing wrong (in fact, he just fulfilled his parole requirement). Outside, the police, led by a dry, sinister officer in a long black leather coat, order him to lie face down on the ground; Sophia leaves the house and is placed in the back of a car, watching all of this through the glass. As the cops open the trunk of Miller’s car and remove pounds of drugs, our growing horror and fear is echoed, but oh so ironically, in “The Chain,” which plays throughout all of this. The song is a slow build, which finally explodes into that wonderfully melancholic and fast-paced climax. (“Cha-aa-ain… keep us together!… Running in the shadows!”), and elevates the fear and trauma of what we are seeing to the purest opera.

Staging a great needle drop is not the same as directing a great film. But Potsy Ponciroli, the director of “Motor City” (opening July 24), is largely operatic in temperament. He’s made a stylized crime drama that’s full of pop music and also full of naturalistic sound, so it looks and feels more or less real, it’s just that the characters don’t converse. (Occasionally they say a throwaway word here or there.) Even when two of them are simply sitting at a restaurant table, what happens between them is suggested by glances, gestures, and our ability to read the situation. The reason this works is that we’ve seen enough thrillers to be able to color the essence of the dialogue ourselves; We don’t need to hear the words. And without them, we connect with pure presence of the actors. At times, “Motor City” feels like a silent film directed by Scorsese. It appeals to us because it has a shiny underworld opera surface, but also because the audience needs to use their noodles a little to participate in the film’s narrative.

“Motor City” presents Detroit as a gritty, seedy place, a ruined purgatory with a period rock vibe (Styx and Zappa posters) that is the perfect setting for a crime drama. The sound of David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire),” heard in a revamped version (at this point, the song is a reference to a needle drop), sets the tone of dread-soaked ecstasy, and a flashback to what’s happening in the alley just outside a sleazy club gives us all the drama we need. That’s where Sophia, who hangs on her dress like a ’70s floozy, first meets Miller, who looks like a party animal carved from marble. The twist is that she’s already attached to Reynolds (Ben Foster), who seems like a fool, but is actually an extremely rich and powerful drug dealer. Miller ended up pulling Sophia out from under Reynolds’ controlling gaze. The police arrive at Miller’s house because Reynolds, seeking revenge, has set him up.

A headline, seen in a newspaper box, tells us that Miller has received a 25-year sentence for possession of narcotics. That’s what happens when you steal an underworld boss’s girlfriend. And now Reynolds has got Sophia back. He comes to visit Miller in prison and gives him a photograph of him and Sophia (they are now married), with an inscription scrawled on the back: “You should have seen the honeymoon.” Ponciroli features a powerful sequence, set to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” that deals with Miller’s jealous fantasies, and “Motor City” continues to tighten the screws of sadism and revenge. It also has a diligent cop and some clever twists, like one revolving around a wedding ring. Written by Chad St. John, it’s a grunge piece of primal pop that recalls everything from “Drive” to David Lynch and the primitive, low-budget wit of “Dragged Across Concrete.”

I was a fan of Ponciroli’s sly, stylish 2021 western, “Old Henry,” starring Tim Blake Nelson as a vermin who couldn’t be messed with. But “Motor City,” while a less perfect film, shows that Ponciroli has a talent that I think could be explosive in a mainstream film. If I were a producer or studio director, I would hire him immediately. He brings out an expressiveness in his actors (that’s a big part of what makes the film work), and there’s a boldness to his choices that can seem rhapsodically correct, as when he stages an intricate prison break sequence in the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin.”

That being said, the last part of the film falls in a rather inexplicable way. Miller, having escaped from prison (with a dagger made of melted candy), will obtain his revenge, but for some reason the film’s needle drops disappear, replaced by a blandly orthodox suspenseful score. Did Ponciroli suddenly lose the rights to the songs he planned to use? The problem is that it feels like a violation of the film’s aesthetic, not to mention a colossally wasted opportunity. I really wanted to see scenes of ultraviolence with the latest songs in the world that you can imagine. And the epilogue, which takes place many years later, seems like a miscalculation. But “Motor City,” at its best, qualifies as a truly immersive cinematic experience. It is a film almost without words, but it speaks.