- Actors: Jamie Bell, Kristen Stewart, Robert Longstreet, Terry Loughlin, Dermot Mulroney
- Directors: David Gordon Green
- Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language English
- Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
- Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.85:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: R (Restricted) (US MPAA rating. See details.)
- Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
- DVD Release Date: 26 April 2005
- Run Time: 108 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B0007R4T3K
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 138,234 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
The dazed, dreamlike world of director David Gordon Green remains intact, although Undertow has more story than his previous gems (All the Real Girls, George Washington). In the hot, green Georgia countryside, a man (Dermot Mulroney) lives with his two sons on a farm; their existence is shattered by the arrival of the man's Faulknerian brother (Josh Lucas), a dangerous sort with an ulterior motive. The movie that follows is like The Night of the Hunter filtered through a Days of Heaven lens--there's even a Heaven-like narration provided by Jamie Bell. That's what you get for having Terrence Malick produce your movie. The plot doesn't always sit comfortably with Green's uncanny style--sometimes it feels like an intrusion on a private world of childhood--and Josh Lucas is "actory" in a way that most Green actors are not. Green is at his best when noticing some stray detail (the younger brother likes to arrange his books according to smell), not when connecting the dots of story. Still, the images will stick in your mind, Tim Orr's cinematography is superb, and Philip Glass provides a suitably mysterioso score. --Robert Horton
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Undertow is an exceedingly odd movie, yet it is its very oddness that makes it compelling. If nothing else, it makes the film memorable - and I don't think it would have been otherwise. I don't know where this is supposed to be set in the South, but it looks like the film had someone in charge of nothing else but finding the most depressing locations of squalor out there. Poverty apparently causes brain damage, judging by this film, because there is not one truly sane person to be found in the cast of characters. At its heart, I suppose Undertow is basically a human story, but it comes down to a tale of two pairs of brothers. Chris (Jamie Bell) and the younger Tim (Devon Alan) live with their pa John Munn (Dermot Mulroney) out in the middle of nowhere, a human pig sty out in the sticks somewhere. After the death of his wife, John took his sons and basically retreated from the whole world. Chris is always getting into trouble, and we first meet him running from some little hick girl's daddy and suffering a most painful injury sure to make you wince. You immediately say to your self that this kid just ain't right - and then you meet the family. It's hard to read the father; he's tough on Chris, easy on Tim, but hardly supportive in his paternal role. Tim has some health problems - although they would seem to be mental, as the boy has a tendency to eat any nasty substance he gets his hands on. Your all-American family, this is not.
Things are at least bearable - until John's jailbird brother shows up unexpectedly. Even before we learn about the issues John and Deel had in their past, it's easy to see that ol' Deel is up to no good. There's something in that run-down house that he wants, and the Munns' already unhappy home comes crashing down completely, leaving Chris and Tim on the run. The second half of the film follows the two brothers as they try to survive on their own, and survival basically means they have to keep running. Now we see even more pitiful scenes of human discomfort - some rather heart-breaking, some disturbing, and some just incredibly weird.
With such strange characters, there's some interesting dialogue interspersed throughout the film. I have no idea what the crazy mechanic kept running on about, the only truly nice people the young brothers meet up with are borderline loonies, and Tim himself delivers a whole Shakespearian-length monologue about chiggers. I wondered what kind of resolution this movie would bring to bear in the end (actually, I wondered if it would even try to resolve anything at all) - it's not entirely effective, but there is an actual ending. It's the contrast between the two sets of brothers (although one could bring a semantic argument into the definition of brother here) that stands out as a possibility for whatever the movie was supposedly about. I'm not sure I can even classify Undertow, however - I can't stretch my definition of Southern Gothic to truly fit it, and it's certainly not a thriller. Undertow is basically just a real oddball of a movie that somehow succeeds at being fascinating despite itself.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The story of Undertow begins simply enough. Chris Munn (Jamie Bell) is a wild teenager living with his father and brother in rural Georgia. He always seems to be getting in his trouble with the law. His father feels stretched to the limit caring for Chris and his sickly younger brother Tim. Then the boys' uncle Dermot walks into their lives after a mysterious long-term stint in a prison. The momentum of the story quickly picks up when the boys are suddenly sent running for their lives. As if in a fable, the brothers must wander aimlessly in a perilous wilderness while trying to hide a secret.
Director David Gordon Green's two previous feature films, George Washington and All the Real Girls, explored the rich inner drama of rural landscapes and the people who inhabit them. Undertow continues in this vein with a tale that is decidedly more like a Hardy Boys' thriller. But at the same time it contains the psychological and moral density of a film like Night of the Hunter whose story it oftentimes resembles. Although Green's films thus far seem to be similarly themed he has declared that he has a great desire to make a movie about a monkey and racing that includes lots of fart gags. Jamie Bell gives a tremendous performance as a rebellious teenage boy who must quickly mature in extreme circumstances. It makes you want to follow his journey all the way to the movie's startling ending.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
its true this movie isn't for the average guy wanting to cozy on the couch on a saturday night-its more of an experimentation. Still much better than tom cruise blasting through the bleedin air! its a big mesh of idiosyncrasy and fantasy all in the disguise of a typical hollywood film! it doesnt quite work as well for me as David gordon greens fantastic all the real girls but There are moments in this film -if you're willing to invest in it- that will stay with you all your life. yep and jamie bells fantastic...again!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
`Don't Ever Let the Same Dog Bite You Twice'
This was one on my `should have seen sooner list', it is a film from 2004 and is the third effort from director (and co-writer) David Gordon Green and received a very mixed... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tommy D
great film
excellent film well written and acted kept the tension right through with a couple of twists only down side was the ending was a bit weak
Published 8 months ago by soulboy
the box is the best bit..
you see the box and undertow seems worth the buy, so i bought it. but dear god, jamie bell had a good performance but i really didnt like this film, it was like watching paint dry. Read more
Published on 23 April 2007 by cue to leave.
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