In Detroit, a single moment of violence can set off a chain reaction that ends with several people in body bags. In writer/director Jay Anthony White’s Project 313, a desperate hustler, his best friend, a real estate investor, and a new detective spend three days on a collision course that no one sees coming.
A Detroit police shooting of an unarmed teen boy lit the powder keg of violence in Project 313. Our story opens with a young man, Machete, aka Chete (London Scott), who’s in deep with Mexican Mafia boss Omar for 40 stacks, and his life is on the line. He goes to kingpin (and actual uncle) Jimbo (Charlie Newhart) for help. Jimbo chastises him for getting into trouble but gives him a chance to make enough to pay off Omar, with money left over to spend. The job is simple: steal a client’s high-end car for an insurance scam.
Chete’s best friend, Parrish (DuWan Anderson), is a good kid with potential. He’s smart and just needs his GED to take the first step toward a better life. At home, though, he cares for his Aunt Bev (Delores Harris), who has early dementia. She doesn’t realize her husband has passed and thinks he’ll be home soon. Compounding their problems, they could lose their house over unpaid back taxes. Seeing that Parrish needs help, Chete offers to give him part of his car heist bounty.
Andrea scowls with a toothpick in her mouth on a Detroit street in Project 313.
“Our story opens with a young man, Machete, aka Chete, who’s in deep with Mexican Mafia boss Omar for 40 stacks, and his life is on the line.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, junior real estate investor Nicholas “Nick” Primeau (Jared Withrow) and his partner are buying up homes in the ghetto for profit and gentrification. Nick was recently put on blast after a viral video showed a homeowner confronting him to his face over a shady deal made behind her back.
Let’s return to the powder keg about to blow. One night, Officers Chambers (Amerrah Garrison) and Jones (Jay Allen Barry), who were on the scene of the unarmed teen shooting, answer a call. They are lured into an ambush by three local gang members and murdered on the spot. When his car gets a flat tire, Nick finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and sees the trio standing over the dead officers. Nick runs and hides in the trunk of the car that Chete is about to steal. The next morning, Chete steals the car, picks up Parrish, and discovers Nick in the trunk. When Detective Crenshaw (Marcus Woods) arrives at the scene, he finds Nick’s abandoned car with no sign of Nick.
All this to say, Chete and Parrish have a hostage and don’t know what to do with him. Parrish recognizes Nick as the greedy real estate developer and would like to give him more than a piece of his mind. Because the car was near the ambush, Uncle Jimbo wants nothing to do with it and refuses to pay Chete, which puts Chete in Omar’s crosshairs. And we’re only at the end of the first act.
Jay Anthony White knows the streets of Project 313 firsthand. He grew up in a rough part of Detroit near the Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard and spent about 15 years running his grandmother’s shop, White’s Records, until it closed in 2007. White says the film “was born from a need to tell stories that resonate with the struggles and triumphs of communities across America,” and calls it “both a mirror and a call to action.” The shooting of an unarmed teen is the spark that White uses to dig into themes of grief, race, and the tide of gentrification sweeping across the country. He highlights the gap between the people living in Detroit’s neighborhoods and those buying them up.
Chete and Parrish talk on the bleachers by a chain-link fence in Project 313.
“It’s a solid directorial debut for White that’s fair to the cops but sides mostly with Detroit’s struggling citizens…”
Project 313 is a gritty urban street drama that follows three volatile storylines. First, there’s Chete, who is in deep with the Mexican Mafia and whose life is on the line. Each step he takes at his uncle’s behest only drags him deeper into trouble. Then there’s new transfer Detective Crenshaw, who must solve the officer murders without starting a gang war. Finally, there’s young Parrish, who has the man literally destroying his neighborhood right within his grasp. He can be a hero to his community, but at what cost?
As a film, Jay Anthony White’s indie directorial debut nails the look and feel of a crime thriller. It has all the earmarks of a professional production. This veteran screenwriter knew exactly what he wanted his film to look like, and the film balances action and drama well. There’s never any question about what drives each character, and it offers a nuanced portrayal of a police officer mired in the controversy of a teen shooting, while still maintaining a sense of the desperate nature of young people just trying to survive in this world.
Jay Anthony White’s Project 313 is everything you want in a professional crime thriller, and every character’s motivation is clear as they close in on one another. It’s a solid directorial debut for White that’s fair to the cops but sides mostly with Detroit’s struggling citizens, and it’s worth checking out on both the big and small screens.
For screening information, visit the Project 313 official website.
"…has the man literally destroying his neighborhood right within his grasp."
