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Undertow (2004)

tomatometer

59

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 15

No consensus yet.

audience

63

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 7,128

My Rating

Movie Info

Chris (Jamie Bell of Billy Elliot) is a volatile teen who lives with his father, John (Dermot Mulroney), and his little brother, Tim (Devon Alan). After the death of Chris' mother, his reclusive father moved the family to a shack in backwoods Georgia, where they raise hogs. Tim has an unusual eating disorder. He is constantly making himself sick by eating things like dirt and paint. One day, John's estranged brother, Deel (Josh Lucas), gets out of prison and shows up on the farm. John is less

Apr 26, 2005

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All Critics (119) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (53) | DVD (11)

A deep-fried piece of Southern Gothic that wears its unpleasantness like a merit badge...

March 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Green's signature pastoral tangents and codeine pacing don't slow down this tale of two boys fleeing their psychotic uncle so much as inappropriately slacken any of the story's suspenseful aspects.

August 16, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out New York
Time Out New York
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Green's characters often find themselves in raw, unprotected moments, but Undertow also can feel a little too mesmerized by its own junkyard visions.

December 10, 2004
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film's first half is hypnotically watchable.

December 9, 2004 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Green is all surface and no depth in his effort to channel the late novelist William Faulkner.

November 19, 2004 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | Comment (1)
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A crackling good, low-down noir thriller.

November 12, 2004 Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Bee
Top Critic IconTop Critic

a drag-down bore

September 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Writer
Cinema Writer

Undertow is a wonderful murder mystery about the price of greed, and the way money can easily tear apart relationships that were once thought solid.

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed
Cinema Crazed

While it has lulls and sleepy moments, Undertow also full of startling truths and beauties, as well as offering a window into a side of the country that movies rarely bother to look at.

February 27, 2009 Full Review Source: CHUD

The actors grapple manfully with the ersatz rural poetry of the dialogue, but Green's pacing is slow and self-indulgent, and the action often departs from recognizable human behavior.

August 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Green's most accessible film to date, yet he keeps his directorial style very close to the way it's always been. Slow, patient, revelatory.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

Structured like a fairytale and driven like a fast boat down a leafy river, Undertow expertly blends myth and suspense to create a fable with a wicked sense of humor and an appetite for destruction.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Threat
Film Threat

A poetic, atmospheric drama that's worth seeing despite Green's struggle to blend character drama with more conventional thrills.

June 25, 2005 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

It will likely polarize his critics further, causing some to recoil at his welcoming of influences, and others to be thankful for more "Malick-lite."

June 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

A front-loaded film, sure, but what a front.

June 21, 2005 Full Review Source: BBC

Bell is superb as Chris and he completely nails the difficult Southern accent; if you hadn't seen Billy Elliot, you'd swear he was someone Green had picked off the street

June 18, 2005 Full Review Source: ViewLondon
ViewLondon

While the first hour promises something very special indeed, the build-up is squandered once the two brothers take flight with not enough sense of danger or urgency to hold your attention.

June 17, 2005 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK]
Daily Mirror [UK]

Bad in the worst way, yet it trails clouds of glory and authentic stink from a Georgia pigsty. Pretty, a legitimate auteurist statement. And a flop.

March 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Weekly
Seattle Weekly

While the disparate elements at times seem to be struggling against each other like cats in a sack, an undeniable current of urgency runs through the film.

February 24, 2005
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It plays like nothing more than an exceedingly well-written Friday the 13th sequel.

January 24, 2005 Full Review Source: SPLICEDWire
SPLICEDWire

A portrait of the rural South that engages all five senses

January 15, 2005 Full Review Source: Movie Habit
Movie Habit

[Not] a very appealing viewing experience.

January 14, 2005 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Undertow may throw off viewers expecting a more straightforward thriller. But hang with it, and enjoy the thrill of being drawn into these characters' lives.

January 14, 2005 Full Review Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Green may think he's the next Terence Malick. His amateurishly ambitious movies tell otherwise.

January 3, 2005 Full Review Source: Boulder Weekly

Audience Reviews for Undertow

Undertow is definetly director David Gordon Green's best work to date. Even with all it's flaws it is a interesting film with hypnotic atmosphere and powerful performances. At times it even reminds me of somekind of southern gothic fairytale with moments of horror and strange beauty mixed together.
Green has often interesting visual stamp in his films. He is clearly fond of placing his stories into the backwoods of America. His films like Gerorge Washington, All the Real Girls and now Undertow, share the samkind of milieu. But where George Washington felt plotless, Undertow is might be too ambitious for it's own good.
First 45-minutes of Undertow are pure magic. It is the more intimate moments between the father and his two sons living in a old house at Georgia, that are this film's true strenght. However the screenplay co-written by Green himself takes a fatal turn when father's psychotic brother comes to visit them and to collect an old treasure which their own father once left them. From there the film begins to collapse and loses most of it's hypnotic edge when the story shift gears and turns into kind of variation of Grimm's fairytale and begins resemble something more closer of an horror-film. When it reaches it's weak climax the whole film has come so far from where it took off that it feel like we're watching a whole different film.
Somewhere under it's sloppy screenplay lies a great film, but now it is buried with too many sideplots, ideas and themes. Undertow remains still a interesting film because of the thick mood it has. Here is film that does have atmosphere like no other film has.
Undertow works best as a curiosity. For those who has not seen any Green's work, this is a good film to begin with. It is far from perfect but in it's strange hypnotic way it is also a must see for those who are interested in seeing uncompromising films. Undertow is flawed rarity.
January 7, 2012
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

Looked promising, but ultimately underwhelming. Also, Kristen Stewart is in this for about ten minutes, if that, so don't let that be a deciding factor in watching this!
The first few minutes seemed interesting and it had it's moments, including a small appearance by Shiri Appleby, but I just found it did not hold my attention particularly well.
November 23, 2008
romy861

Super Reviewer

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