Underworld

I picked up this movie for a few dollars at a local discount store in town. It advertised Denis Leary & Joe Mantegna, plus the box promised "In the style of The Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs". I bought it and threw it on my DVD shelf, not really thinking about it. But last night I was in the mood for some crime, so I threw it in.

I really don't know what to say. The film just kind of falls flat with a whole lot of unnecessary dialogue. I think they were trying to go for a Tarantino thing by having incredibly long scenes of Leary explaining where he wants his money to go or the beauty of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but while somewhat humorous in the end it just seems like padding. That's not to say Leary makes it boring, quite the opposite. Leary is well known for his tirades. And for what he has to work with, he actually keeps the long dialogue bits somewhat watchable.

Joe Mantegna does his best, but his role just isn't very well written. He's mostly there to be a quiet straight-man for Leary's insane ramblings. When given a chance he has shining moments, but those are few and far between.

But as for the rest of the film, it just kind of falls flat without any fanfare. The script is too long and kind of confusing, if only for the fact that major plot points are surrounded by stilted dialogue chunks so you can't really pay attention to grab hear them. Editing is very by the book, however there's a few aesthetically pleasing moments of lighting and direction that might surprise you.

All in all, if you're a strong fan of either Leary or the modern crime genre, it's worth a look for only it's hour and a half run time. But if you have something better or just not in the mood, this film isn't going to turn any heads.

Although the movie was only so so the closed captioning was by far the best I have ever seen! Most of the time the spelling is terrible and the captioning out of sync. I use the closed captioning even though I can hear well but find a lot of actors mumble. Also many times the sound track overrides the dialogue. Thanks!

This movie is so bad, they wouldn't buy it back at my local used CD/DVD store. I only own it because it came in a box set which I bought for the masterpiece "Deadfall". The store bought back the other two movies I was selling from the four disc set, but they wouldn't buy back Underworld, and those other two movies redefined rank, so what does that say about this movie? So I tried to sell it back to another store, that even bought back budget DVDs that you could buy for a dollar at a local store, but they wouldn't buy back Underworld either. This movie is bad on every level, and is one of those that came out in the post-Tarantino-clone glut of the mid 90's. The only slightly redeemable element is Dennis Leary telling Joe Montegna, that he's a "stinky friend" and calls him "Mister Stinky Friend". That line is so delightfully horrible, that I can't help but quote it at least once a week when describing a stinky friend. But now that I've enlightened you with that quote, you don't have to go thru the pain of watching this movie.

If there was a list to mark the worst movies in history (actually there is on this page), I think Underworld could probably top that list. Given, Denis Leary put on a great job, shooting people and making wisecracks, the movie had no direction and I don't even think the director knew what the hell to do with it. This script belongs in a wastebasket. When one man makes your movie somewhat (remember I said somewhat) watchable.....there's problems.

GRADE: F

This movie is an obvious rip-off of Underworld USA starring Cliff Robertson. You owe it to yourself to invest a couple of hours and watch the original. I found this one to be disjointed and hard to follow, with a lot of scenes that didn't make much sense. I'm not opposed to violence in movies but this whole thing seemed to be nothing more than an excuse to blow away one person after another, many of whom were only marginally connected with the storyline. With everyone else getting killed, all through the movie I wondered why Frank didn't just blow Johnny's brains out. He certainly could have and Johnny sure didn't act like someone that could be trusted. Another thing that bothers me is the sex scenes; why do these people have sex with their clothes on? Is that supposed to turn us on? Surely they didn't think they had a shot at a PG rating. Nothing in this movie seemed to play out naturally. as if one were watching people in real life, instead it was done in a heavy-handed and shallow manner.