Steel CityA warm and fuzzy film  June 6,
2007 2:56:22 PM
STEEL CITY: A prison-loving, family-values flick.
|
Brian Jun’s film owes more to the family values of the Reagan era than its anarchic characters and hardscrabble style would indicate. Although on the surface it seems hard-edged, at heart it’s warm and fuzzy. Tom Guiry evokes a fiery dyspepsia as P.J. Lee, whose world is torn apart when father Carl (John Heard) faces a seven-year prison sentence after killing a woman in a car crash. Everybody struggles with forgiveness in the most conventional of ways until the film ambles to the unrevelatory conclusion that Carl’s failures fragmented the family and that it’s up to dad to bring a new morning to America. But Heard is a profound sufferer — too bad Jun didn’t stay focused on Carl instead of milking all the other characters for pathos.
|
 |
|
- Comic timing
- Lessons from the build-them-up, tear-them-down Boston firefighter backlash
- Archaic laws are often funny, but they’re no laughing matter
- Evangelicals are speaking in bubbles — and fighting God’s war on pop culture
- Obama can still win the Democratic nomination — but first, he has to get over himself
- These guys couldn't turn on a radio
- Lessons from the build-them-up, tear-them-down Boston firefighter backlash
- Why steroids, spying, and all those other sports scandals are actually good for fans
- Evangelicals are speaking in bubbles — and fighting God’s war on pop culture
- Zeitgeist’s compelling Kentucky Cycle; Double Edge’s Republic of Dreams
- Jonathan McPhee and the Longwood Symphony perform Beethoven's Ninth
- If you want to lose the ‘fright wig,’ try ditching your shampoo
|
-
A beguiling and disappointing debut
-
A same-sex Harold and Maude
-
Get out of the theatre with your bad self!
|
- A layered art-world exploitation
- Introducing reggaetón
- Gritty, macho, and lacking in grace
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age is leaden
- Homosexuality in the Bible
- Vaseline and sock monkeys
- A smirky and sore temptation
- A documentary of differences
- Darjeeling is limited but rewarding
- Clooney cleans up as Michael Clayton
|
|
|
|