The Underneath (1995)

Who payed the critics

Really Surprised!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Michael Chambers (Peter Gallagher) returns home for his mother's marriage. Michael had left town due to his gambling addiction. His wife Rachel (Alison Elliott) was forced to deal with the fallout. His mother's new husband gets him a job as an armored car driver. He reconnects with his now ex-wife. Her boyfriend Tommy Dundee (William Fichtner) spies them making out. Tommy is angrily possessive and Rachel wants to escape. Michael gets pulled into a robbery of the armor truck.The flashbacks are mostly a waste of time. The color saturation is an attempt at art-house. The basis of this is the film noir crime drama. Soderbergh does it as a character study at first. I keep comparing this to Blood Simple (1984) where new filmmakers Coen brothers try their hands at noir crime drama. They were able to work the style successfully whereas Soderbergh seems more interested in working around the genre. As a whole, the movie lacks the needed tension and the characters are not that compelling to me.

The film screwdly portrays the hero as a witty, angst-ridden nihilist surrounded by other nihilists (Tommy D and the hero's ex)who are one, and two, steps ahead of the hero, respectively (of course the Joe-Don Baker figure is three steps ahead). The unpretentious psychological depths of the film are one of its strongest features: Michael wears his Dad's suit to his mother's wedding, misuses the word "divorce" for marry" with respect to his mother. The homely, trite, but nevertheless tender relation between the mother and her new husband is a wonderful counterweight to Michael and Rachel's wicked (though much sexier) egotism. Settled age, age that has seen its limits, lived a lot, and wants the pleasures of company and routine are counterpoised to Rachel's cunning, calculating, perverse ambition. The brother figure - brilliantly acted - is an alternative to Michael - for he is dutiful to his mother and law-abiding. And yet, he also simmers with plots, and secretly envies his brother's bad-boy charm, good looks, and way with women.The film's first 10 minutes are confusing, but once you get hold of the style it flows pretty smoothly. The Underneath actually gets better as it goes along building to a climax that stays within the established rules of a film noir but is brilliantly realized by director Soderbergh. This is a movie that brilliantly weds selfishness with our common existential yearning for more and more possibility. It is a morality tale to the extent that it shows how destructive can be the pursuit of total ego-gratification, but it shows us this without also denying that Mom's tranquility and comfort in old age consists in a vacant stare into the television, hoping to win the lottery. A watered down form of the same despair her son expresses through gambling, irony, and deceit.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

"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+)

I hesitate to call this movie slow, but it is very deliberately paced. All the acting is very good and the portrayal of gambling in the family is an interesting aspect. Alison Elliot is adorable and a good actress. The director makes a cameo trying to pick her up in a bar.