Undertow (2004)

Don't Get Pulled Under...

You can find real treasures in independent films if you look hard enough, but "Undertow" is a stone best left unturned. From the director of "Pineapple Express', it is the story of a man propelled by little more than greed, a thriller that lends little glory to its genre.

After the premature death of his wife, John Munn (Mulroney) has his hands full with his two sons - teenage Chris (Bell) is a belligerent troublemaker in love with a girl from the other side of the tracks and 10-year old Tim (Alan, who looks like the love child of Carly Simon and Steven Tyler) suffers from an anxiety disorder, one which has caused him to develop an ulcer and strangely enough engage in the act of pica (eating non-food items such as paint, mud, etc.). It's a hard knock life on their rural farm in the backwoods of Georgia, their grief, isolation and loneliness only exacerbated when John's brother Deel (Lucas) rolls into town fresh out of prison.

From the get-go, Deel is shifty and intimidating, his wide toothy smiles belying the avarice in his eyes. It's apparent from Chris's first outing with Deel that things aren't right with his uncle. After scaring him half to death speeding on a back road with no hands on the wheel, Deel starts hinting after the whereabouts of some gold coins that once belonged to his and John's father. When whisperings from John about some sort of curse being over the coins come to light, the story bottoms out and becomes a random, pointless muse on greed with little to no abstract thought on the subject.

Art direction has true grit, along with bare bones make-up and hair. Mulroney and kids always appear as if they've just rolled out of bed - hair disheveled, faces sheening with an amalgam of sebaceous oil and sweat, dirt 'neath the fingernails. I'm a little puzzled by the editing, what with the sudden inexplicable pauses in action (I kept thinking the DVD was on the fritz) while the sound continued, as well as oddly placed jump cuts. What effect this was meant to create, I haven't a clue. The original score from Philip Glass is an eerie accompaniment, all but resonant with it's simplistic and repetitive sound (something that Glass is well-known for).

Performances aren't really all that noteworthy either due to the lackluster script. Lucas, Bell and Mulroney are all superior actors but not even they can muster much emotional inspiration from this story. Lucas does manage however to imbue Deel with the right amount of creepiness with a masterful cold and crazed stare coupled by his sly smiles, a real wolf-in-sheep's-skin.

A half-hour rough documentary on the film (Under The Undertow) shows that most of the production team is in touch with their inner-redneck, director David Gordon Green walking around shirtless and crew members displaying some rebellious and disrespectful behavior with lots of ignorant cursing (really, how many times does the "F" bomb drop in that 30 minutes? Geez!). The brief 30-day shoot is troubled by sweltering temperatures, the ruthless bites of chiggers, unexpected downpours, tornado warnings, a prima donna make-up artist and disgruntled natives. Lucas and Mulroney also wear themselves thin with the film's many hand-to-hand combat scenes, each of them fracturing their ribs during different stunts. Even Jamie Bell managed to puncture his foot with a REAL nail while off-camera.

Bottom line: If you're a nerd for indie films, then you'll probably like the gritty, simplistic approach of "Undertow". If, however, you like to be moved by an intelligent screenplay and affecting performances from the actors as well as an evolutionary storyline, keep your distance. September 26, 2008

Solid

When does the seep of an artist's talent get to be too much? Is it the first time he `sells out', or the third, or when all of the early potential has drained away? This was what I was thinking as I watched David Gordon Green's third filmic effort, Undertow, an hour and forty-eight minute effort released in 2004. Oh, it's not a bad film, but all it is is a stylized, updated version of Night Of The Hunter, and that was a vastly overrated mediocrity of a film to begin with, directed by Charles Laughton in 1955, and starring Robert Mitchum as a murderous psychopath who stalks children who run away from him. What is most distressing about the film is that it comes after Green's first two features- the enigmatically wonderful George Washington and the lyrically poignant All The Real Girls.
The basic problem is the screenplay- it's virtually nonexistent, and what does exist is all refried trite Hollywood potboiler thriller. How's this for originality? Two white trash Southern brothers, the Munns, are reunited. They have a deep, dark secret in their past. One brother, Deel (Josh Lucas), has just gotten out of prison, and the other, John (Dermot Mulroney), has two sons of his own, Chris (Jamie Bell, from Billy Elliott)- who impales his bare right foot on a nail, sticking up from a board in an opening chase scene, and Tim (Devon Alan)- a budding mental case who pukes all the time because he eats slugs, dirt, and paint. John stole Deel's girl, married her, and then Deel went crazy, committed a crime, and went to jail. It seems that John has some family gold coins that are worth alot of money. Deel steals the coins, kills John, then tries to kill John's two sons, who've run off with the coins, even though he claims that Chris is really his son, since they look more alike and Chris has been in trouble with the law, as well. There are some potential moments of characterization, and a realistic family squabble with less melodrama and trite chase scenes would have been far more up Green's alley, but this film's sitting on the fence is what dooms it.
Rumor has it that Green is working on adaptations of two recent books that contain dubious potential for him to expand his visual art- Brad Land's atrocious memoir of frat boy sodomy, Goat, and Sue Monk Kidd's `mystical Negroes' novel, The Secret Life Of Bees. Is there no end to the bastardization of art? Apparently not, but such bastardy takes willing participants, and Green should be severely chided for moving away from his unique style. He was on the cusp of greatness with All The Real Girls, and perhaps becoming not another Malick, but an American Ingmar Bergman. Instead, Undertow is a major step backward for Green and for American film's future. Too bad his audience had to dosey-do with him.
September 23, 2008

David Gordon Green's "sophomore jinx."

David Gordon Green, the writer and director of Undertow, has actually directed three films between Undertow and his exceptional debut film, George Washington. Nevertheless, Undertow marks his first highly praised film since that debut, and as I see it, reflects his true sophomore film in his precocious directorial career thus far.

Sadly, Undertow borrows a bit too much from Terrence Malick. Gordon Green has admittingly stated that he is a Malick disciple (see the Charlie Rose interview for details), but he seems more set upon making a film from that realm of creativity than he actually does from his own. In Undertow, the Malickean borrowing process is at times incredibly annoying, and Gordon Green seems unable to give us a thorough plot with characters we actually give a flip about. I cared for those characters in George Washington, but the characters here in Undertow seem to be sidestepping any type of developmental elements whatsoever, and by the time the film is over, I was actually feeling sorrow for Gordon Green because I knew he was capable of doing much better.

PLOT:

Two boys living in Georgia with their impoverished father become intrigued by the sudden arrival of their uncle (Josh Lucas) who arrives without warning and with something maniacal brewing in his eyes. Soon, the boys are horrified to learn of what his true intentions are and the stage is set for a great hunt across the hot, summer landscapes of Georgia as they flee their uncle's malevolent pursuit. In the process, they come across a wide-range of tramps and do-gooders, some of whom will help them while others will seek to exploit them.

3.5 out of 5
June 16, 2008

Hard to shake

This is a bit of review from memory, but it's the memories I've kept of this movie that recently led me to purchasing it again. I saw it in 2004, some 3 1/2 years ago, and as I went this week to catch David Gordon Greene's latest movie, Snow Angels, it was the originality, cleverness, and imagistic wisdom of Undertow I remembered. At the time, I felt it a giant step down from All The Real Girls, Greene's movie of first love that is so warm it's like first love itself, and it is, but it's also a clever, absorbing gothic thriller. I remember liking other movies of 2004 more, but none have retained the memory of this one - of its lines, somewhere between poetry and lunacy ("Can I carve my name in your face," one character asks another), and the movie itself, which is a dream mixed with a fable mixed with a chase thriller, if not a morality tale centered around the River Styx. If there was a disappointment I had at the time, it was the movie's pace, or maybe it's conventional structure, but I can't imagine that to really be that upsetting considering how its creeps up in my mind from time to time, one image after another, reminding me of what an original Greene is, of how his style is unmatched, and of how movies like this, flaws or no, are the reason I love modern moviemaking. March 25, 2008

Very good movie

First caught this on TV by accident. Couldn't shut it off. So, purchased my own copy. Have become a big Jaime Bell fan as a result. February 28, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...