Underground

Underground (2007)

Underground is a low budget movie from merry old England. 6 rich people each sponsor a pair of fighters, tossing in a hundred thousand pounds per fighter. Those 12 fighters then beat the crap out of each other in an underground tournament with the last man standing earning 500,000 pounds for himself and an equal amount for his backer. This setup is established quickly and the rest of the movie’s quick 90 or so minute runtime is made up mostly of the fight sequences, which are each set in interesting locations. In the end there is one man standing with the rest gone home disappointed.

This is a very simple movie that is light on plot and heavy on action. We never really get to know the fighters that well. The movie gives some background on why they fight, but we still have names like the Homeless, the Foreigner, the Triad, and the Ex-Con. This is also a movie that is surprisingly light on dialogue, with the exception of the few exchanges of the backers as they pit their fighters against each other. While doing my research for this review I noticed that a lot of people bash on this movie. As someone who watches a ton of low budget films I don’t understand that at all. First of all I appreciate that fact that they don’t try to develop the fighters too much. Given the movie’s budget I’m sure that it was hard enough to find people who could execute decent fight sequences, much less act and fight. The whole point of this movie is the fights, which I think are executed nicely. If the filmmakers had tried to go for an intricate plot or expected too much from their cast the movie wouldn’t have worked as well as it does. This seems to me to be an excellent example of a filmmaker making the best movie with the limited resources at hand.

Of course this sounds like I’m saying the movie isn’t good or has major flaws. That isn’t what I mean at all. I guess the best way I can put this is that if you are looking for a meaningful movie with deep characters and lots of drama you might want to skip Underground. On the other hand if you want to see an action packed flick that always has something interesting on screen then you should check Underground out. This has some of the best fight choreography and fight sequences that I’ve ever seen in an independent movie. It really was a blast to watch and I recommend it.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer