Steel City

Well, the critics loved it, and yes, it's got that certain verisimilitude that the hundreds of gritty, bleak, docudramas have had before it. And yet, there's not a single thing about this film that makes you want to keep watching.

It's got the traditional aspects; the gray/blue washed out color palette, the going-nowhere, stuck in a dead end job lead character, the "I knew a guy just like that in my home town" older brother, that these films always seem to have. The film focuses on endlessly bleak subject matter that it just can't seem to rise above.

The cast of characters are fairly stock, and not particularly interesting, and are the usual denizens of working-class middle America. However, America Ferrera does stand out in a relatively small and somewhat thankless role. Screenwriters write monologues to attract name-talent to their projects, but after awhile the endless sloppy exposition just becomes too painful to listen to (Note: if your characters are launching into "Remember whens.." in every other scene, your in dangerous territory.)

The lead actor does a decent job, but isn't a particularly interesting to watch, and the setting created certainly isn't much more interesting to look at. In the end, you just feel as if the actors have nowhere to go with this script, but they will surely all have a few scenes for their personal reels. There's nothing here that couldn't have been handled just as well in a documentary. There isn't much of a story here, but the events are more or less predictable, with the exception of an especially improbable "plot" twist two-thirds through the film. No one really seems to want anything, except maybe to get through another day. And as the viewer, you find yourself just trying to get to the end of the film.

Steel City is one of those low-budget movies that makes for satisfying Sundance fare despite lacking the necessary ingredients for broader box-office success. It's the story of a dysfunctional family in a small town in Illinois, centering around 20-year-old PJ (Tom Guiry), who is trying to hold his life together as his father goes to prison for his role in a fatal car accident. PJ is angry, bitter and confused. He can't hold a job or his temper. He resents his older brother Ben (Clayne Clawford), whose life is also unraveling from alcohol, selfishness and philandering. He's feeling alienated from his mother, who has moved in with a black cop and his son. And he tries desperately to be supportive to his father (John Heard), for reasons that gradually emerge in the movie. Finally he is connected to his Uncle Vic (Raymond J. Barry), who helps him get a job and attempts to mentor him.

All this may sound vaguely familiar, but director Brian Jun manages to develop the characters with honesty and compassion. By the end of the movie each character has worked out his redemption, and in the process created bonds of love and concern within the family.

These Steel City characters feel like real people. The writing is crisp, hard and direct. The casting is terrific and each performance believable. This family will grow on you, and you will find yourself rooting for them to do well, to make good decisions, and to find happiness.

After a tragic accident caused by the truck of the middle-aged Carl Lee (John Heard) where a woman dies with a crushed stern, he is arrested and sent to the county jail. His son PJ (Thomas Guiry), who works washing dishes and cleaning tables in a restaurant, feels lost, without financial support to keep his father's house, and is fired from his job and evicted from his house. His older brother Ben (Clayne Crawford) is a harder worker in a mill with a little daughter and cheats his wife with a bartender. Ben has open wounds in his relationship with his father and does not visit him in the jail. Carl's brother Vic Lee (Raymond J. Barry) helps PJ bringing him home but demanding discipline and respect. PJ's mother has just left her husband and is living with a policeman. On Christmas, the remorseful Carl forces PJ to keep an overwhelming secret that bonds them.

"Steel City" is a low-budget movie that seems to be a very personal family drama, supported by magnificent performances and solid, simple and credible screenplay about people not well succeeded – losers indeed. A father with remorse for leaving his family has a second chance to redeem himself in behalf of his young son and he sacrifices his freedom to compensate his absence in his childhood and adolescence. Therefore this is a beautiful tale of redemption but never being corny or commercial. On the contrary, most of the characters are not nice, and I dare to say that they are unpleasant with their rude behaviors. Nevertheless "Steel City" is a worthy movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Atrás das Grades" ("Behind Bars")

I never intended to watch this and was only doing so with half an eye, but it gradually grew on me and got better.

These sad small towns exist everywhere - not only in America, and the people who live there are the same. Some of them are trapped and sink into their despair and darkness; but some make something of themselves and are able to either move on or live a full life exactly where they are. People are people everywhere and stories and people like these are everywhere.

Some of these characters were not particularly likeable, but then, who is to say.

I especially liked the music very much.

This movie caught my eye because I live in a "Steel City"...Granite City, IL. Although the IMDb didn't list it among the original photography sites, many of the scenes that got my attention were from my home town.

The shots in Scene 6 on the DVD with the Petri's Cafe and United Steelworkers Local 1063 are places I have driven past on the way to work for the last 36 years. The shots of the large industrial smokestacks at the end of the block are the Granite City Steel works of US Steel. A shot down State St. includes the Commercial Shoe Shop. The shot of the old downtown area that includes the painted advertisement was interesting...the building has been torn down since this film was made.

My son is a police officer and was interested to hear about the inclusion of his town (East Alton, IL) in the film.

Gritty, greasy, noisy, everything you might imagine two steel towns to be (Alton and Granite City, IL). But I love them both.