Just out of prison, Johnny Crown (Denis Leary) is running a bit late for a meeting he's been waiting seven years to attend. First he has a little unfinished business to take care of: hunt down every last man responsible for taking out his dad. Like everything else Johnny does, he's going to do it his way – in style. With his mysterious friend Frank Gavilan (Joe Mantegna) along for the ride, Johnny's out to uncover just who masterminded his father's hit, and settle the score for good, on one eventful Father's Day.
After Roger Christian directed the successful The Final Cut for producers Robert and William Vince of Keystone Entertainment, the Vinces presented Christian with the script for Underworld by Larry Bishop.[3] Christian responded positively to the script which allegedly Quentin Tarantino had read and responded to positively a few years ago and inspired him to write Reservoir Dogs and the Vinces hired Christian to direct after being satisfied with his work on The Final Cut while they were trying to convince Denis Leary to sign on to lead as the financing was contingent upon his involvement in the film.[4][3] Leary had issues with a final scene in the script until Christian described how he'd approach it which helped clear away Leary's reservations and seeing him agree to lead the film.[3]
Principal photography on Underworld took place from November through December of 1995.[5]Trimark Pictures was initially set to distribute the film with chairman Mark Amin an executive producer on the film, but following disagreements between Keystone and Trimark over how to market the film, with Trimark favoring selling Underworld as an art film while Keystone wanted to play to a broader commercial audience, the two companies came to an agreement where Keystone would handle the theatrical release of the film themselves with input and advice from Trimark while Trimark would handle the home video distribution of the film.[4] Keystone would eventually partner with Legacy Releasing on the film's theatrical release.[4]
CNN reviewer Paul Tatara gave a highly negative review of the film, dubbing it as "...very violent, very profane, and very bad. There's less killing at your local slaughterhouse, and the dialogue is probably sharper."[6] Anita Gates of The New York Times noted that the film with all its flaws was "Fine actors in the lead roles struggle to maintain their dignity and to breathe some believability into these characters, who all talk strangely alike, and to an admirable degree they succeed."[7]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
