Steel Country Review

Donny (left) and his daughter (right) - CREDIT: Bulldog Films -

Steel Country is a mysterious thriller directed by Simon Fellows and written by Brendan Higgins.

After a young boy goes missing, a garbage truck driver named Donny decides to investigate due to him being at odds with the local police’s belief that it’s an open-and-shut case.

The mystery is never whether the young boy is missing or not, as that’s resolved two-and-a-half minutes into the film; there a couple of minutes of establishing shots of the isolated town before a sudden shot of striking red trainers belonging to a submerged body. Before the title is even shown, you are led to believe that you’ll see something that’s been done – a lot: traumatic incident occurs in quiet town and an everyman must investigate.

I should point out that Steel Country is the original title of the film, and was the name given on the service I watched it on, but it’s since been titled A Dark Place in the USA. The former points to a more political angle due to the fictional town of Harburgh, once a relatively prosperous industry-based location, being forgotten about. There are shots of American flags early on as well as a Trump-Pence sign, which could be examples of the townspeople buying into nostalgic patriotism as a result of their home’s decline.

While A Dark Place is also a name that, rather overtly, covers the setting, it focusses more on the mind’s own ‘dark place’ which is a more prominent subject in it than politics, so I can see why they resorted to this title. However, for clarity, I’ll be referring to it as Steel Country throughout the review.

Main character Donny’s dark place manifests in outbursts that the script never really justifies, instead appearing as a cartoonish depiction of what it’s like to be “mad”. Andrew Scott (Sherlock) portrays his desperation well and he forever looks like a drained character, but despite his best efforts, Donny was difficult to engage with. His mental problems are apparent, however I couldn’t ever get over how uncomfortable his presence was, difficulties or not.

Themes such as parenthood and neglect are handled fairly well, but writer Brendan Higgins also felt the need to spell some subjects out. There is a clumsy Peter Pan comparison that tells the audience exactly what they should be thinking, and Donny’s motivation is revealed halfway through the film thanks to someone saying it out loud. His issues are used as a means of blurting out expository dialogue or as a means of expository dialogue being blurted to him, normally by his co-worker Donna who spends 95% of the film complaining to Donny.

- CREDIT: Bulldog Films -

As the investigation unravels further, he realises that many people have their own dark places which muddies the water and draws questions regarding who’s truly innocent. It often veers in a similar direction to Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners in that sense due to a tragic incident blurring lines and pushing the main character over the edge.

Being murky doesn’t make it automatically interesting though, which is the main issue with Steel Country: it’s not very engaging. Donny is almost an interesting character, but the supporting cast do very little to prop the film up. There was a lack of focus that resulted in potentially compelling characters, such as the victim’s mother or the doctor, being side-lined for bland ones, Donna or Donny’s mother, or in order to squeeze another one in.

Ultimately, the script just couldn’t handle everything it set out to and no element was given sufficient space to shine.