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| Underneath, The |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 99 m |
| Public Rating: 9.00 (3 votes) |
Director: Steven Soderbergh |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Suspense |
Year: 1995 |
| Writer(s): Daniel Fuchs, Steven Soderbergh, and Sam Lowry |
| Reviewed by: Goatdog |
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There was a moment early in this film where I thought it wasn't going to be much fun because of the dialog. Michael (Peter Gallagher), a reformed gambling addict who has returned home for his mother's wedding after skipping town years earlier to avoid gambling debts, is having a flashback where he has just won a lot of money on a football game. He exclaims "I love betting." I thought, why the heck did that need to be said? It is obvious, due to Gallagher's great performance, that he is enjoying himself. I had a sinking feeling that the rest of the film might be as obvious, and as overstated. I was wrong, but that was still a bad line.
The rest of the film was really enjoyable, especially if you like intricate flashbacks and multiple storylines. The film presents us with Michael in three different time frames. There is a flashback where we learn why he had to leave town in the first place. In this, he is bearded and antsy, and doesn't pay much attention to his girlfriend Rachel (Alison Elliot), who worries about his addiction. There is what appears to be a present day story, where he is returning home having squared away his debts and decided to go straight. His mother is getting married, his new stepfather offers him a job at a security company, and his brother doesn't believe that he's not still a crook. Then there is what turns out to be the present, in which he and his stepfather are driving an armored car being followed by a mysterious white van with tinted windows.
The film staggers the flashbacks inventively, allowing us to learn why Michael had to leave town and under what circumstances. We see him coming back, ostensibly to see his mother married but really to renew his ties to Rachel. She's dating a local hood named Tommy (William Fitchner) who is insanely jealous, and at first she rejects Michael's advances. She is torn, because it seems that she loved Michael but can't forgive him leaving. They have a "moment," where they agree to go to a romantic hideaway, but she doesn't show up at their arranged meeting. He is now obsessed, and I don't think it is really about Rachel anymore. It is obvious that he's not all that emotionally involved with her, because he quickly falls into bed with Susan (Elisabeth Shue), a woman he met on the bus into town who works as a bank teller, whose only purpose is to work at the bank... He is obsessed with proving to Rachel that he has changed, but she doesn't seem to care anymore whether he's changed or not. His efforts to win her back, especially after she and the hood are married, lead inexorably to the present-day sequences in which he is driving the armored car.
The film features a trick ending that doesn't really work; it doesn't clear anything up, and I think they included it to have a trick ending (you can usually spot those a mile away). It didn't completely ruin the feeling I get when I watch a good double-cross, but was kind of a letdown.
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