Underneath (1995)

Audio: English AC3 5.0 @ 448 Kbps | Subs: English, French, Spanish
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller | USA
Michael Chambers returns home to celebrate his mother's marriage. Michael had been ousted from his home town due to his gambling indiscretions and had left his wife to deal with the mess he created. He now must reassimilate back into the town, renew his relationships with his family and friends (and enemies) and, most of all, seek out his ex-wife to woo her again. In the process, he obtains a job working with his mother's new husband as an armored car driver. He almost seems the perfect prodigal son as he finds his niche back in the community and his way back into his ex's heart. His troubles surmount when he and his wife are caught in the act by her hoodlum boyfriend/fiancé. To get out of this predicament, Michael must concoct a plan to heist of a payroll being carried by his armored car company.

Well, ultimately (The Underneath) was kind of a mess. I didn't quite unlock it or figure it out. Some things about it are interesting, but others are...if there's a successful element to The Underneath it was finding a way to use color in the same way that noir films used to use black and white. That was the one part of the movie that worked. Everything else about the movie I can't defend. It was a failed experiment, but a good experiment to attempt. The results of that experiment were necessary in making (Out of Sight). They can't all be gems. It's a process. Stephen Soderbergh

A complex character study with a twisty-turny plot and more double-crosses than one can comfortably shake a stick at, "The Underneath" is definitely one of Steven Soderbergh's more complex films. He pulls out all the stops, using split lenses (particularly during one bravura dinner sequence), different color film stocks, imaginative framing devices -- you name it. Sure, one might complain that the result is cold and calculating, but I'm not that one.

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