Awfully low-key yet undeniably engaging...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 13, 2008

Steel City is gritty, blue-collar and surprisingly dry-eyed. If it hadn't been a movie, it could have been a song off Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 28, 2007

Many traps await novice filmmakers, but writer-director Jun has bypassed most in his absorbing debut.

| Original Score: 4/6 | Jun 23, 2007

Writer-director Brian Jun makes it clear that Steel City isn't about big events, even crucial inciting ones. It's about day-to-day decisions and how they change and inform relationships.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jun 16, 2007

Steel City is a moving look at fathers and sons. [Director] Jun neither romanticizes nor pathologizes blue-collar family life. In this earnest rust belt indie, doing the right thing means tipping the scale of justice.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 15, 2007

Nearly everything about Steel City is pure Indie Filmmaking 101.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2007

For big chunks in the middle of the movie, Steel City seems lost and styleless, but it builds a cumulative power as we get closer to learning what's up.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 14, 2007

Steel City is one of the most hopeful movies I've seen recently -- not just for its humane, realistic story line (about a small-town family in crisis), but in its very being.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2007

While the territory of Steel City is as well-worn as the roads of this tiny town, the people and performances are interesting enough to warrant the detour.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 14, 2007

Steel City may be the only movie released this year that's so observant you can hear what the characters aren't saying.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 8, 2007

The stilted dialogue, relying too heavily on speeches, robs the film of believability -- which disappears completely with its happy ending.

| Original Score: 3/6 | Jun 2, 2007

It's not always a success, but the ensemble actors are fine at fleshing out purposely underwritten roles.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 1, 2007

In writer and director Brian Jun's film, the story isn't set up so neatly, and, at first, the ambiguity builds tension.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 1, 2007

Brian Jun makes a strong feature debut with a blue-collar drama rooted in character and community and focused on the everyday over the dramatic flare-ups...

| Original Score: B | May 31, 2007

Excellent performances by a good cast and a fairly authentic look at working-class struggles go only so far in Brian Jun's Steel City, which paints an industrial Minnesota municipality entirely in tones of gray and blue.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 25, 2007

[Director Jun pounds] out a suitably gritty atmosphere, and there's real chemistry between Ferrera and the excellent, quietly expressive Guiry. He's an actor still looking for his big break; this is a fine time to discover him before everyone else does.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 25, 2007

Mostly Mr. Jun's script is sharp, and Laurie Metcalf, James McDaniel, America Ferrera and Raymond J. Barry in supporting roles help keep the tale mesmerizing, in a small-scale sort of way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 25, 2007

Steel City could have used more rhythmic drive, but if [Brian] Jun keeps weaving together characters this compelling, he could be a major film artist in the making.

| Original Score: B+ | May 23, 2007

Brian Jun's directorial debut exhibits enough unfussy familiarity with its tattered blue-collar locale.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 23, 2007

Whatever Steel City lacks in oomph or even originality, it at least breaks even with its working-class authenticity and unexpectedly well-rounded ensemble.

| May 22, 2007