Undertow

There's a certain kind of evil maddog in the movies. It's hard to describe exactly what makes this kind of character work, but like pornography, you know him if you see him. In Undertow, Josh Lucas brings such a character to life, an antagonist full of seething hatred, overwhelmed with bloodlust until it threatens to eke the very last drop of his humanity away.

These killers can often be identified by a lack of willingness to die, even when faced with injury that would result in the certain demise of a conventional human being. Lucas in Undertow mainly evokes Robert Mitchum's crazed stepfather in Night of the Hunter, but also brings to mind Max Cady of Cape Fear fame or any number of slasher movie villains. He's relentless, he's evil and he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants.



In David Gordon Green's masterful new thriller, it's a bag of gold coins left as inheritance by his absent father. But the object of desire itself doesn't matter - what matters is Lucas' single-minded need for these coins as an end to themselves. They exist, they are his, and therefore he must have them.

Lucas played Deel, who moves in with his widower brother (Dermot Mulroney) and two nephews (Jamie Bell and Devon Alan) following a stint in prison for an unnamed crime. Deel harbors a deep-seated resentment towards his brother, for marrying his girlfriend, for keeping their father's stash of gold coins, and just for living freely while Deel suffers and toils. It all leads to a while chase through a surreal rural Georgian landscape.

Like his previous George Washington, Green has made a violent thriller that feels nothing like a violent thriller. Despite his choice of subject matter, his films drift by languidly, mirroring their sun-drenched Southern landscapes. You sense that he's far more interested in the personalities the boys will meet during their breathless journey, and in Deel's steely and tireless pursuit, than in following a straight-ahead narrative.

He's aided by a phenomenal score by Phillip Glass, which doesn't so much push the intensity of the action forward as slow the film down, adding a layer of reflection to the proceedings. We don't just see Deel murder, but see him after the murdering is over, watching his rage bleed away and the horrific realization of his own actions coming over his face.

In an early scene, Jamie Bell's older brother, Chris, evades capture by the enraged father of a girl he's attempted to woo. He races across one of Green's signature post-industrial Southern landscapes, at one point stepping right down on an upright nail sticking out of a board. With his bare feet. But instead of pulling the board off, he continues running, loping awkwardly from side to side, his face curled up in pain, desperately attempting to avoid punishment for his actions.

It's an invaluable character moment, for one, but also a visual metaphor for the action of the film. Characters have no choice to push forward, to put aside their personal pain and endure the worst in order to survive another day. Like Chris with a board nailed to his foot, the boys will face considerable barriers to their survival throughout the film, barely escaping certain capture again and again.

They're aided by a cast of supporting characters that lend an air of magical realism to the film. Though Green's films always exist in a dreamy, gothic universe not quite identical to our own, this is the first time he's made a movie with such a "fairy tale" motif. He's been quoted as citing The Grimm Brothers as inspiration, but there's also more than a little bit of a Mark Twain quality here as well. And like Night of the Hunter, the Southern "types" we meet, like the kindly and childless black couple who provide the boys with some rare kindness, or the city of "lost children" living in an abandoned and half-decayed building in the wildnerness, add an eerie forboding to the atmosphere.

The fantastic cinematography of Tim Orr adds to this ethereal, other-worldly spirit. Their frequent use of freeze-frames brings an additional stillness to the film; moments of quiet, assured calm in the midst of the storm. It's this mixture of fiery intensity and relaxed melancholy that, I suspect, contributes to Green's frequent comparisons to Terrence Malick in the media.

This is the third collaboration by Orr and Green (and Green's overall third film), and they are among the most exciting director/DP teams working in movies today. Each of their films has its own unique style, but they feel tied together, like three parts of the same series. The Southern Gothic Tragedy Trilogy.

So, all of that being said, I must concede that this is probably Green's least ambitious work, with the least amount of emotional heft. George Washington was such a stunning debut, told with such visual virtuosity and replete with some of the most realistic child acting I have ever seen, that it's hard to imagine Green will manage to top it. At least as long as he's working within the same cinematic vein. And All the Real Girls boasted such emotional maturity, along with some really lovely performances and the best screenplay of Green's career as a writer. So, though he really nails Undertow from a directorial standpoint, I can't help but be left a bit cold by its lack of depth.

Its thematic material, aside from the pain vs. consequence dichotomy mentioned above, focuses mainly on the kind of "sins of the father" storyline we've already seen many times before. We're asked to consider how the relationship of the older set of brothers impacts the younger set, and how the resentments of previous generations (not just Deel and his brother, but their father as well, who relates the entire story in voice-over) are carried on by future generations. And though the "cursed" gold is a nice visual touch, and the performers do the best they can with their material, it's just not terribly memorable or significant material.

Don't get me wrong...Green definitely elevates the material into something worth your time. I enjoyed Undertow immensely, both as a piece of riveting and exciting adventure entertainment and as a piece of cinematic craftsmanship. But this is not an emotional epic like Green's other works so much as a wholly successful and darkly effective spook story. Go in expecting as much and you shant be disappointed.