Undertow (2004)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Talented filmmaking from director of Pianapple Express, with a disturbing underlying nerve right from the start. The story evolves around two brothers growing up in a poor, rural farming environment in the southern part of Georgia. Troubles comes when the convicted brother of the father of the boys turned up unexpectedly, looking for some hidden gold coins.It's a well told story, a southern tragedy, with great acting from the entire cast. The underlying terror of the past is haunting in this piece of good film making. The story is perfectly told, but if something's lacking here, it's the final pull of interest. But it's beautiful, sad and heart wrenching from a lesser fortunate part of USA.Well worth a watch, if you don't expect a masterpiece, but a good film.

A dad and two children live together in a house away from the city-- and away from everything. Mother died years ago and dad dealt with some problems, so he decided to live isolated from society. That's a strange thing to imagine; his sons are 10 and 18 (approximately), and it is almost impossible to live this age without friends, parties or only people to talk about something according to your age. After some while, dad's brother shows up and reveals some weird secrets. As the movie movies, even thought there's nothing too exciting for you to be entertained, directing and acting make you pay very attention to the dialogs and reactions of the cast. Sometimes actors speak too low, so you have to be entertained to understand what they're talking about. Photography directing/editing are beautiful, making this movie be very calm to watch. Unfortunately there are some violent scenes and the movie seems to reach nowhere, but it is a good time passer. Watch it only for entertainment and maybe you'll enjoy.

An unnecessary and derivative slice of Southern Gothic, David Gordon Green's "Undertow" takes the plot of Charles Laughton's "Night of the Hunter", in which a pair of siblings are pursued by a murderous adult throughout the American South, and places it in a contemporary setting.This genre requires larger than life characters and a director willing to push archetypes to ridiculously Biblical proportions (think Mark Twain, the Grimm brothers, Robert Louis Stevenson, or Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"). Green, however, is a much softer director, fond of improvisation and intuitively stolen compositions. The result is a film which goes through the genre's motions in a very wayward, unfocused and slow manner, Green seemingly unaware that he's dealing with a tale which needs to be treated as pulp, or on the level of legend or Gothic fairy tale.The film's "white trash" ambiance and "Southern flavours" are themselves all overly manicured and supremely self-conscious – there's something awkward about rich white people playing impoverished, uneducated types - but that's typical of most movies. The film's title, "Undertow", and its narrative arc which finds a pair of brothers fleeing their blood relatives, suggests a world in which the young/poor are unable to escape their past, forever caught in fate's dangerous undercurrents. As the film ignores any and all social context, these themes fall flat. Like most indie film-makers, Green merely aestheticizes poverty, dwelling on grime and salivating over rusty vehicles and dilapidated homes. It's all a design choice - a type of poverty porn or gutter chic - rather than anything more substantial.6/10 – See "Flesh and Bone", "Shotgun Stories" or "Night of the Hunter" instead. Note that the film tries to emulate Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven". Malick co-produced "Undertow".

Not quite the southern Gothic revival I was expecting from David Gordan Green after watching "George Washington" but not too bad anyway.Two brothers witness their Uncle kill their father, for a set of lost gold coins, and unable to turn to the police, are forced to escape cross country, and encounter many strange and symbolic characters along the way.All and all I wasn't as impressed with Green's stunner of a debut, his trademark writing style is still present "can I carve my smile in your face?", but it's used less here, to the movies detriment. There's some great cinematography as well, the same sense of the beautiful junkyards and backwoods, but the overall story feels kinda contrived. There are some fairy tale-esquire moments, which elevate this above a normal thriller, but a masterpiece this is not.I got the sense when watching this it might be better the next time, or it might be worse. Worth watching for Dave Gordon Green fans, and those interested in beautiful photography of the south, or thrillers in general, but overall it just didn't seem to connect all it threads.