Review: Undertow (1996)

Lou Diamond Phillips’ car breaks down in a storm and he awakens in a secluded cabin inhabited by uber-macho backwards hick/survivalist nut Charles Dance and his essentially captive and seriously timid wife Mia Sara (whom he ‘claimed’ at age 13!). A game of macho one-upmanship ensues as Phillips and Sara also start making goo-goo eyes at one another, and the storm outside keeps getting worse and worse. If the storm doesn’t kill them, they might just kill each other.

 

Stripped-down 1996 thriller (premiering on cable in the US, and I caught it on cable here in Oz) has a terrific pedigree, and not just confined to its cast. It is directed by Eric Red, and written by Kathryn Bigelow and Red (both of whom worked on “Near Dark”, whilst Bigelow also directed “Point Break” and Red scripted “The Hitcher”, all classic genre films). Unfortunately, it is a horribly familiar, and generally uninteresting genre entry that we’ve seen a thousand times before (Think a macho blend of “Misery” and “Dead Calm”), usually better. The small cast is pretty good (Phillips especially, even if he seems bored by it all), except Dance isn’t all that credible as a Southern hick, though his accent is generally without fault. I just didn’t buy him as a dumb-arse macho hick, he’s too pensive and bookish to play such a character, though he definitely does an admirable job.

A little too economical, and certainly too derivative, but there are a few tense moments (the displays of machismo are pretty damn funny, actually) and one helluva storm. Ultimately, though, this isn’t much of anything, and certainly nothing that you’ll remember afterwards.

 

Rating: C