Not all that far underneath

The Underneath
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Academy Twin and Valhalla Cinemas, Sydney
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
Steven Soderbergh (of Sex, Lies and Videotape fame) has his audience on the edge of their seats through this movie about the shifting personal alliances behind/underneath a conspiracy to commit armed robbery. The action is limited but tension is built by a skilfully crafted jumble of flashbacks and an implausible plot.
Good-looking gambler, drifter and charmer Michael (Peter Gallagher) returns to his sleepy home town, which he deserted years before along with his former lover Rachel (Alison Elliott). His brother is a cop and harbours a deep resentment of his brother's irresponsible lifestyle. Rachel and Michael renew their contact but Rachel is now married to a local gangster, Tommy (William Fichtner).
Entangled in a web of resentment, intrigue and jealousy, Michael, Rachel and Tommy conspire to heist an armoured truck full of money. The problem is that none of the three can trust the others, and the audience gets its thrill anticipating who is going to be betrayed.
Soderbergh describes The Underneath as a "relationship movie with a crime in the middle". He claims to be interested in exploring the sharp contrast between how people act on the surface and what's really going on underneath. In The Underneath this exploration doesn't go too deep. In the main characters, Michael and Rachel, this contradiction is explained with one word, "style". They are both so cool, they express nothing.
In her review in the Sydney Morning Herald, Ana Maria Dell'oso aptly described this as a "post-modern thriller". Fashionably, Soderbergh paints the moral landscape of this drama in shades of grey. There is no black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. But what is left? A handful of people, related as siblings, lovers and ex-lovers, get down to some pretty serious deception and betrayal of each other, and all we are offered by way of explanation is the folksy observation that you can't step over the line for a minute and then step back without paying a price. What social insight!