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After starting with a bang, by having one heck of an opening sequence, Undertow goes on to become this awesome modern retelling of The Night of the Hunter. This film just bursts with atmosphere, so much so that I feel like I need a shower after watching it. Everything is dirty and smelly and really the perfect setting for such a story to unfold. I feel that the whole eating disorder thing is a bit inconsequential, but aside from that I think this movie is tops. David Gordon Green does it again.
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I'm starting to think that perhaps David Gordon Green and I aren't meant to get along. Undertow is atmospheric Southern Gothic Literature transferred to the screen but I feel like something is missing with this one, whether it's the attempt at a narrative or just having to put up with Josh Lucas for 104 minutes I'm not sure. Jamie Bell is great and so is the score from Philip Glass and as essentially a retelling of Davis Grubb's Night of the Hunter it works just fine. That is all.
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Yep, Undertow is totally directed by the dude who did Your Highness and Pineapple Express. If you think you're in for some stoner gags you'll be very disappointed. Undertow is a hard hitting family drama featuring an excellent performance by Jamie Bell as an older brother escaping the wrath of a malicious uncle. Not exactly a classic, but a riveting film worth watching.
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One of the best example's of a director beautifully envoking the spirit of the 1970's "Grindhouse" thriller without pandering to fans of that genre.
This movie falls more in line with Paperboy then it does Machete, or Hobo w/a Shotgun.
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The search for both stable living conditions and the construct of family runs through muddy waters. Undertow can't easily be labeled despite its echoing of early Malick (surprise, surprise). Through pain and loss, hope remains.
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I'll need to watch this again to digest it and figure it out; being that I was completely unprepared for the David Gordon Green that existed before Pineapple Express, this film hit me like a ton of bricks.
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Dialogue is wifty as all get out, but watching Green expand the thrill of the accidental death sequence in George Washington into a feature length spin on The Night of the Hunter is the primary reason I really dug Undertow. The story is ridiculous beyond belief, but the filmmaking (that earns forgiveness with a Philip Glass score as co-pilot) is so gosh darn crisp (semi-indulgent zooms and great transitions without sound, continuing poetic construction); Undertow has the strangely ironic prestige…
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Strange and slow thriller. Feels like a southern gothic story.
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Painfully bad.