Soderbergh's 'Underneath' shows gritty, witty action

"Good luck," says a surly bar bouncer to Michael Chambers (Peter Gallagher) for no perceptible reason, early on in Steven Soderbergh's 1994 thriller "The Underneath."

The bouncer could not know how prescient his bit of well-wishing is: Michael is fatefully entering the nightclub owned by his ex-girlfriend's new small-time gangster boyfriend - a club unsubtley called The Ember.

A tale of love, luck, money and suckers of all kinds, "The Underneath" thrives on scenes like this; the entire film is an impossibly brilliant balance of overt, highly loaded visual style and subtle symbols.

And don't dare blink during "The Underneath" for fear of missing any instances of stylistic flourish, a hallmark of Steven Soderbergh's emerging directorial repertoire.

Soderbergh, the man who simultaneously put indie filmmaking, Miramax Films and the Sundance Film Festival on the national map with 1989's left-field landmark "Sex, Lies & Videotape," is once again gaining attention in Hollywood.

Let some of that light shine on "The Underneath," a largely overlooked film that received little theatrical exhibition and was shuffled quickly to video shelves.

Such an unfair shake seems fitting, though, for a movie so captivated by unfair shakes.

A remake of 1948's "Criss Cross" with Burt Lancaster, "The Underneath" is a straightforward - if necessarily twisty - film noir update with all the trappings of the genre - the dupe, the hood, the comely femme fatale, the shadow of the unknown - but with a blindlingly colorful palette.

The colors that dominate so many frames of the film are a result of Soderbergh's shooting through stained glass, tinted windshields and other assorted kaleidoscopic transparencies, perhaps to underscore the film's focus on what lies beneath, just beyond the surface.

What lies beyond the surface of the film's rather conventional plot - a compulsive gambler who left behind a girl and a debt must return to his hometown to confront them both - is a romantic, well-acted, expertly-told cautionary tale that reminds viewers both lust and luck have a tendency to run out.

Most of the running out is done by Peter Gallagher's Michael, an ordinarily decent guy - he selflessly returns home to see his mother get remarried to even more decent guy Ed (Paul Dooley) - who just happens to be plotting an armored car heist and the subsequent re-wooing of his girl.

But his girl, Rachel (Alison Elliott), isn't the type to be wooed. She's the type who'll dance seductively in that light, all hair and curves, and then bite the head off anyone who she successfully seduces.

She's a black widow waiting to eat her mate, who may be Michael or her hoodlum boyfriend, the very noir-named Tommy Dundee (William Fichtner).

But until that postcoital point she'll give Michael and Tommy promises of loyalty and happiness, not to mention the occasional foot-to-crotch treatment.

The film piles on twist after twist and introduces more pawns than you can shake a red herring at - including Elisabeth Shue's bank teller Susan, who all but consents to be used by Michael out of sheer loneliness.

Gallagher, in a layered performance, conveys similar longing for company, love and trust, when not upstaged by his co-stars.

Psychopaths, dupes, and good old-fashioned dames all lie within Soderbergh's evocative "Underneath," a film worth finding at your local video outlet

04-01-99