The Underneath

source: The Underneath

Trailer—Underneath

Underneath

Another ultra-slow film from the master of ultra-slow films (Solaris, Contagion). This overrated Director is once again showing how to take a classic like Film Noir's Criss Cross (1949) and covering it with neo-nothing. Here his "stylized" cinematic turns are so glaringly intrusive that it does nothing but draw attention to the fact that the film is a yawning yearn for yesteryear. A sympathetic feeling for modern moviegoers that take this stuff as serious cinema when it reveals itself to be nothing more than frivolous fluff with ideas that go nowhere (notice all the lottery references). Oh get it...that's suppose to be some sort of subliminal reference to the struggling lower middle class and their unattainable utopia. But never fully brought home, this is indicative of the kind of artsy "insight" from a wannabe, near-sighted visionary.

Yesterday I watched "Underneath", and my expectations were pretty low. I had seen that it had 6,5 here on IMDB, so I thought it was worth watching. The story is a bit confusing, sometimes you are in the past and in other scenes you are in the future. I think it could have been made better, but it doesn't change the fact that this movie was made with a lot of flashbacks, you could only see it was a flashback because Chambers had beard. The story is a bit interesting, and the cuts with past/future make sense after 70 minutes, but it's too late. You have lost the interest, and just hope the movie ends. Anyway the end was interesting, and it saves the movie from being a disappointment, but "Underneath" can't get more than 5/10.

Soderbergh's showoffy stylistics (color filters, flashbacks, first-person point-of-view shots) try - and mostly fail - to "spice up" a cliched and insignificant plot. Don't bother looking for anything fresh in this movie, it's the same old drifter-back-to-his-hometown / femme fatale / dangerous husband / heist-gone-wrong / last-minute-betrayal storyline. Peter Gallagher's detached, almost catatonic approach seriously affects the movie, but Alison Elliott shines playing the most complex by far character in the film and William Fichtner impresses even in his completely stereotypical bad-guy role. (**1/2)

"The Underneath" tells of a man of dubious character who returns to his home to a less than warm reception and becomes involved in a web of intrigue with money and a woman at the center. This film is good technically and artistically. Good but not great. And there the goodness ends. We're fed bits and pieces of a story involving the elements of corruption, jealously, conspiracy, robbery, murder, betrayal, and more. However, the characters are so superficial and mechanical and the film so clinical and rigid we're left to idle disengaged voyeurism. With no emotional involvement we, the audience, have nothing at stake, have invested nothing in the characters, and don't care how it ends. We're just glad it's over. (C+)

With two sets of flashbacks, count them two sets of flashbacks interspersed throughout the movie the last one catching up to where the movie begins in the present, it just makes a garbled mess. Kind of like the last sentence. I like Peter Gallagher and Elizabeth Shue, but she had such a small role and he couldn't save the convoluted mess that movie just seems to be told out of sequence like it is. The cinematography is nice if that's any consolation! I bought my copy at Walmart for $5.50 and I can't honestly say I'll ever watch it again. I can't recommend it, but I won't condemn it either.

I read somewhere where this film was supposed to be a remake of the 1949 film noir, "Criss Cross." I found the latter to be disappointing but it was still better than this film. This movie is a "neo-noir" since it's modern-day and it's in color, two things that purists would make it be disqualified for film noir status. The biggest negative to it, however, wasn't the cinematography (that was fine) but the muddled storyline. Hey, some of '40s Dashiell Hammett stories were similar but I didn't care for some of those either. The filmmakers here did not help the situation by placing flashbacks into the story what seemed like every three minutes. No wonder it was the keep up with this story. It was ridiculous! What happens is that by the 45-minute mark, their is so much confusion nobody cares anymore. I know I didn't.

A complex character study with a twisty-turny plot and more double-crosses than one can comfortably shake a stick at, "The Underneath" is definitely one of Steven Soderbergh's more complex films. He pulls out all the stops, using split lenses (particularly during one bravura dinner sequence), different color film stocks, imaginative framing devices -- you name it. Sure, one might complain that the result is cold and calculating, but I'm not that one. Fans of Soderbergh's "Schizopolis" will recognize Mike Malone (T. Azimuth Schwitters) as the guy who attempts to hit on Allison Elliott in the club and is rebuffed, and David Jensen (Elmo Oxygen) as the satellite dish installer. ("Just don't stand in front of it.") And Joe Chrest -- so memorable as Ben the bellhop in "King of the Hill" -- is great as the mysterious Mr. Rodman.