'Sons of Detroit' Cinetopia review: An earnest documentary searching for its focus

Courtesy of Cinetopia Film Festival

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Jeremy Xido’s deeply personal and reflective documentary “Sons of Detroit” clearly comes from a sincere place. At its core, the film wants to reframe long-held perceptions about Detroit, pushing back against decades of stigma surrounding the city while examining the racial prejudice, systemic discrimination, and historical inequities baked into its foundation. It’s also an intensely personal reckoning for Xido himself, who fled Detroit for Europe years ago and seemingly never looked back, until a near-death experience forced him to confront a past he thought he had long since left behind.

Xido, who was raised as one of the only white children in a predominantly Black Detroit neighborhood, uses the documentary to unpack his unusual upbringing, much of which informed his one-man theater show “The Angola Project,” a creative outlet he used to process his identity and childhood experiences. He explains that he was partially raised by his Black neighbors while his own parents struggled, before eventually being pulled out of that environment after his parents became fearful following the fatal shooting of a classmate.

The film opens with a fascinating hook. After suffering a heart attack abroad, Xido describes vivid memories of his childhood home flooding back to him, forcing a confrontation with both his personal history and Detroit itself. It’s a strong emotional launching point, one that suggests a focused, intimate exploration of memory, race, belonging, and displacement.

There’s no denying the ambition here. Xido reportedly spent nearly a decade developing the film, and you can feel the weight of that effort in its sprawling structure. But “Sons of Detroit” often feels like several different documentaries fighting for control. One thread follows Xido’s search to reconnect with his childhood “cousin,” William “Boo” Phillips Jr. Another becomes a reckoning with his parents over their decision to leave the city. Elsewhere, the film shifts into historical explainer mode, diving into redlining, discriminatory housing practices, and Detroit’s racial history. All of that material is worthwhile on its own. Collectively, though, the film struggles to form a cohesive identity.

One particularly striking sequence recounts how a Black family in the 1940s had to purchase a home in cash because racist housing policies effectively blocked ownership opportunities. It’s a sobering reminder of how intentionally these systems were built. And yet moments like that raise a frustrating question: what exactly is “Sons of Detroit” trying to be?

Is this a documentary about Detroit’s racial history? A memoir about survivor’s guilt and white privilege? A family reconciliation story? A meditation on chosen family?

The film is at its strongest when it grounds itself in lived experience, especially in conversations about redlining, displacement, and the radically different paths afforded to Xido and Boo despite growing up in the same orbit. That’s genuinely compelling material. But there’s also an unavoidable self-consciousness to the entire enterprise, a sense that the film is deeply interested in Xido’s own emotional catharsis, sometimes at the expense of the larger story it gestures toward.

That imbalance becomes particularly noticeable with Boo, who feels like the emotional anchor the film should be building toward. We learn, almost in passing, that he spent 20 years incarcerated after killing someone, a revelation that carries enormous dramatic and emotional weight. Yet the documentary never meaningfully explores that history or fully develops their relationship in a way that makes their eventual reunion land with the impact it should.

A stronger documentary may have committed fully to that relationship, using it as the lens through which to explore Detroit’s broader social realities, rather than juggling so many competing threads that none fully take hold. Instead, “Sons of Detroit” often feels caught between personal confession and historical essay, never quite trusting one lane enough to stay in it.

There’s earnestness here, absolutely. Xido’s vulnerability is real, and his desire to grapple with uncomfortable truths about race, family, and identity feels genuine. But sincerity alone doesn’t always equal clarity, and too often the film keeps its most interesting ideas at arm’s length. 

The result is a modestly engaging history lesson and an intimate personal excavation that never fully comes together as a complete whole. Admirable in intent, frustrating in execution.

Grade: C+ 

SONS OF DETROIT screened at the Cinetopia Film Festival in Ann Arbor. No details on its release plans are currently available.