THE UNDERNEATH
US, 1999, 100 minutes,, Colour.
Peter Gallagher, Alison Elliot, William Fichtner, Adam Trese, Joe Don Baker, Paul Dooley, Shelley Duvall, Elizabeth Shue, Anjanette Comer.
Directed by Steven Soderberg.
A stylishly made modern film noir, based on a 1949 film, Criss Cross (with Burt Lancaster). The plot is complex, with several time-shifts, and requires attention.
It focusses on a gambler (Peter Gallagher is excellent) who returns home to Austin, Texas, for his mother's wedding and wants to come back to his wife whom he walked out on. But it is not easy, complicated by his jealous cop-brother, his wife's new gangster protector and his new job as a security man with the help of his genial stepfather.
You have probably guessed that a robbery is not too far off. You're right. But it is not so much a film about a crime as a film about the minds and motivations of all those involved.
This makes it a kind of `art-house thriller'. Since the director is Steven Soderbergh, best known for Sex, Lies and Videotape and the excellent King of the Hill, the film is well-crafted and finely acted. Arresting art-house thriller.
1. The title? The original novel, Criss Cross? From the 1940s, adapted to the 1990s?
2. The career of Steven Soderberg, during the 1990s, subsequently, writing, director of photography, directing, producing?
3. The American town, ordinary, arrivals by bus, homes, wedding celebration, diners and clubs, police officers, the armoured car office, trucks in action, banks, hospitals? The house in the woods? The musical score?
4. The use of colour, ordinary, colour filters and their effects, the characters and situations? Real/unreal?
5. The time shifts, in the van, Michael’s memories, his arrival and the timeline after his return to the robbery? The flashbacks to the past, his gambling career, relationship with Rachel? The intercutting of the times?
6. The study of Michael, seen in the van, audience curiosity? In the bus, the discussions with Susan, phone numbers? At home, his brother and the antagonism, the brother blaming him for his absence after his father’s death, his mother’s love, meeting Ted, pleased with him and his marrying his mother? The background of his leading, his gambling, the relationship with Rachel, her new relationship with Tommy, Ted getting the interview for the job, the issue about the mints, the boss and his assistant, going to work, the new encounters with Rachel?
7. The past, his beard, his betting, his skills and knowledge and hunches, the clients? Rachel, sexual provocation, yet her love for money? The house, the huge television dish, the television, the cash payments? His brother and attitude to it Rachel? The bet, the match being lost at the last moment, his packing up and leaving, absent for years?
8. Meeting Susan on the bus, going to the bank, the night together, getting her code for the robbery, shielding her during the attack?
9. Rachel and Tommy, Tommy and his possessiveness, easily angered, the interactions with Michael at the bar? Catching Rachel with Michael, by accident, deliberate, set up? The deal about the robbing of the van? The conditions?
10. Michael not wanting to have Ted on the job, Ted as a jovial man, good man, the dinner, the wedding, the pathos of his death – and the grief of Michael’s mother?
11. The setup, the signals, the robbery itself, the shootings, Michael being wounded, Ted dying – Michael in hospital, being seen as a hero?
12. The hospital, people praising him, his mother’s grief, his brother saying that he knew the truth?
13. The sinister visitor, the nurse and her care, the visitor seeing his injured sister, Michael’s suspicions, not wanting to go to sleep, the truth about the visitor, the abduction, Tommy shooting him?
14. The hurt, Tommy and Michael confronting each other, the argument, the money? Rachel shooting? Leaving with the money? The femme fatale?
15. The credibility of the armoured car boss and his seeming to be behind everything?
16. A 1940s film noir story in the style of the 1990s?
