A Dark Place aka Steel Country by Brendan Higgins - 8.3 out of 10

A Dark Place aka Steel Country by Brendan Higgins
8.3 out of 10


Although not coming to a theater near you soon, A Dark Place is worth watching.
And it might be in the HBO program.

We had it on Cinemax, part of HBO, last night.
From the opening scenes, the setting of the motion picture is disturbing.

Even if we are so far from America that we do not join the exaggerated caravans on the border, the idea of Trump still affects us.
We once dreamed of the American model.

The ideal that the best system in the world represented brought solace.
To know that there is a place where everything works, if not perfectly, at least so much better, can bring comfort.

With Trump, that dream is shattered.
Even the American democracy can put a clown in the highest office.

What can we except then?
How aggravated can we be at the gangster that leads our land, changing laws to escape jail?

When the film starts we see quite a few Trump- Pence banners.
This explains to this cinephile what happens, notwithstanding the fact that there are monsters out of MAGA territory.

Andrew Scott is impressive in the leading role, that of Donald Devlin.
He works at the sanitation department and is what we still call here a garbage man, despite of the insulting undertone.


It would change and very soon, we would progress and reach the American level.
Electing our own 'Orange Sphincter' in the words of Bill Maher.

When a child dies, the sheriff, the doctor declare that he had drowned.
But the hero thinks otherwise.

Although in simple, traditional intelligence terms he is not superbly gifted, the protagonist is still a Super Hero.
Indeed, this film is remarkable at least at this level:

It demonstrates that far from being condescending, even treating people with a challenge as our equals and feeling generous about it is most often wrong.
For they very often are much more gifted.

Emotional Intelligence is much more important than old fashioned IQ.
And by the way, women are prone to have much higher EQ than men.

This is not sexist,it is the reverse...recognizing the superiority of the sex that has been and still is discriminated in most places around the world.

Donald has to face the sheriff, who would abuse him.
He looks into the garbage of the suspect for clues.

There are mistakes, that is sine qua non.
And the amateur detective has to suffer for his investigation.

He nearly dies and is helped at the last moment by Donna, his colleague.But he would prove just as good as any of the more famous private eyes t have adorned the big or small screen, Hercules Poirot, Holmes & Watson.

Speaking of the last two, A Dark Place is a much brighter prospect as a film to watch than the failed super production that has had so many stars and possibly one hundred times more money dedicated to it.