Stars: Jamie Bell, Dermot Mulroney, Joshua Lucas, Devon Allen, Eddie Rouse, Shiri Appleby, Bill McKinney, Kristen Stewart, Robert Longstreet, Terry Loughlin, Mark Darby Robinson, Michael Bacall

Director: David Gordon Green

Summary: David Gordon Green's third film finds the audacious director trying his hand at a new genre. This time, Green ups the dramatic ante by thrusting his dreamy characters into the world of an action-packed thriller. Chris Munn (an astounding Jamie Bell) is a troubled teenager who can't seem to stay out of trouble. His hard-nosed father, John (Dermot Mulroney), and younger brother, Tim (newcomer Devon Alan), are his only companions. But when John's long-lost brother Deel (Josh Lucas) shows up for a reunion of sorts, the past comes back to haunt everyone. Deel and John were involved in a bitter love triangle as young men, which led to Deel's subsequent incarceration. The brothers also never resolved an issue surrounding stolen gold coins that belonged to their father. When the coins are brought into light, tragedy strikes, forcing Chris and Tim to embark on a frantic journey through the South, trailed by the furious and murderous Deel. With UNDERTOW, David Gordon Green delivers another invigorating motion picture. Working with the same crew that helped to make GEORGE WASHINGTON and ALL THE REAL GIRLS such luminous viewing experiences especially director of photography Tim Orr and sound recordist Christof Gebert, Green has also brought a new voice into the mix: world-renowned composer Philip Glass, who contributes a memorably haunting score. The result is a film that pays homage to gritty B-movies of the 1970s through its electrifying use of freeze-frames, slow-motion, and gratuitous camera zooms.

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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

Aspect Ratio:	1.78 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	2004
Release Date:	May 15, 2006
Runtime:	108 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	824 256 8
Keywords:	Action, General, Thriller, Adventure, Undertow
Genre:	Action/Adventure