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Steel City
R1 - America - Peace Arch Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (19th May 2008). |
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The Film
 More and more independent movies try to become grittier and realistic, but in trying they can become too removed from the real world they’re trying to emulate on screen. "Steel City" (2006) falls into the land of independent film in a bad way, living in its own independent world where the characters seem more like actors and the story feels too trite and contrived to have emotional weight. "Steel City" is mostly about PJ Lee (Tom Guiry), trying to find something to do with his life after his father, Carl Lee (John Heard) is arrested for killing a woman in a car accident. The son is now living on his own washing dishes working for a restaurant and soon hooks up with co-worker Amy Barnes (America Ferrera). Much of the film’s attempts at drama are centered around the relationship between PJ and his Uncle Vic (Raymond J. Barry) who helps him out after his father asks. Their conversations are meant to be the main message and driving points of the film, but come off as too sappy and rehearsed to really make an impact with me. There’s also a few sub-plots involving PJ’s brother Ben (Clayne Crawford), who is married with a daughter and has an affair, PJ’s mother and her new husband, Amy’s relationship with PJ, and a bar. For the most part these stories feel tacked-on to give the movie some more length; a few simply disrupt the overall flow of the movie in a bad way. Though there are a lot of relationships in this movie, none of the chemistry is there for any of the actors and just leaves me waiting for the next scene. Brian Jun’s screenplay and direction lack originality, he doesn’t do more with the setting of the film, in what seems to be a small town in the Midwestern United States, beyond the twangy acoustic guitar soundtrack, blue-collar jobs and title, and the occasional racial slur (which I guess is supposed to give the film an edge, but again it seems there just to make the movie seem edgy). If I had to sum the movie up in one word, it would be bland. You can eat it, but there’s no taste or smell that really distinguishes it. Raymond J. Barry may have received a Film Independent’s Spirit Awards nomination for best supporting male actor, but so many of his scenes (and much of the film in general) play off of the reactions and dialogue with the unremarkable Tom Guiry that it didn’t play well. Even the colors in the movie are generally bland with the film taking a washed out grey tone that could have looked better in black and white that would have given the film some contrast. Overall the film’s heavy-handed message about the past and family just seems to run together into a big soupy mess that doesn’t quite fill up much more than the hour and a half it took to watch the movie.
Video
"Steel City" is presented in the fairly standard 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and is fairly grainy and un-crisp, though I can’t blame the film entirely for it considering that as an independent movie, sometimes you have to cut corners or can’t get the best quality film. The transfer’s grainyness could be attributed to the original film quality, or the transfer process that the director mentions in his commentary where the movie was shot on 16mm film, transferred to high definition dv and edited with final cut pro. The compression otherwise seems fine and there are no obvious flaws.
Audio
Nothing really special here, the disc features English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound as well as an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 mono tracks. The film doesn’t really need it a 5.1 track, as it's a very dialogue heavy movie. The sound in the film is fine, though there are a couple lines that are obvious replacement lines put in during editing as they don’t match up with the rest of the movie. There’s little ambient sound in the movie, though if it was there more frequently, the soundtrack often drowns most everything except the dialogue out. Optional English or Spanish subtitles are available.
Extras
Though I didn’t really enjoy the movie, I like to see single disc DVD’s get packed with special features. "Steel City" appears to do a fairly good job on the back of the DVD, but it’s mostly filler compared to what are actually bonus features on the DVD. Included are two audio commentaries, a short film, some deleted scenes, a photo gallery, the film's theatrical trailer plus a single bonus trailer. Below is a closer look. First up is a filmmaker & cast audio commentary featuring writer/director Brian Jun and actors John Heard and Clayne Crawford. The fact that this commentary doesn’t feature the main actor Guiry is a little surprising. There’s the usual joking, a few on-set stories and Brian Jun spends a lot of time complimenting his actors, but there are a bunch of awkward pauses that stand out and break up the flow of the track. Next is a filmmaker audio commentary featuring writer/director Brian Jun and director of photography Ryan Samul. Again, there’s a lot of time spent by the commentators just watching the movie, though Jun does most of the talking and Samul will throw in his comments every now and then. Jun and Samul go more into the process of making their film independently and do some more talking about the actors, but since I didn’t really care for the movie the commentary doesn’t move me. The director does say one thing that I completely agreed with at the end of the commentary: “This is probably the last time I will ever watch this movie.” Deleted scenes: These aren’t individually selectable from the menu on the disc and are instead thrown together in a large clump that runs a total of 11 minutes and 29 seconds and includes: - PJ lift weights and gets a call which runs for 25 seconds. - Carl speaks to his cell mates in prison and runs for 2 minutes 24 seconds. - Extended dialogue between PJ and some coworkers runs for 44 seconds. - PJ brings Amy over for Christmas dinner run for 1 minute 27 seconds. - Extended scene of PJ’s day out as a police ride along runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - PJ at home with his dad runs for 31 seconds. - Extended conversation between PJ’s mom and dad runs for 3 minutes 21 seconds. - Conversation between Uncle Vic and Carl runs for 1 minute 8 seconds. Photo gallery is also included, nothing special here. A handful of individual frames, 16 photos all together, taken directly from the movie, nothing behind the scenes. Theatrical trailer runs for 2 minutes 18 seconds and is a very stereotypical independent drama trailer, almost entirely made of scenes from the last 20 minutes of the movie. There’s also a bonus trailer before the main menu loads that isn’t available in the bonus features: - "Towards Darkness" which runs for 1 minute 44 seconds.
Overall
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