As in his little-known, independent efforts George Washington and All the Real Girls, director David Gordon Green specializes in capturing the idiosyncratic flickers in life that never leave us. Undertow traces the legacy of violence handed down from one generation of men to another when an ex-con (Josh Lucas) pays a visit to his brother (Dermot Mulroney) and the brother’s two young sons (Jamie Bell and Devon Alan). The emphasis on plot
dampens Green’s lyricism a bit, making the film an experimental departure of sorts for the director.
