TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Casey Duggan
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Jenni Devyn
Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
Comeuppance Reviews
"The Underground" is another guilty pleasure from PM Entertainment. The plot: Fahey plays Brian Donnegan, a clichéd cop character who has to stop the killings of rap stars. He gets in too deep after his partner is killed. Now he stop the murders any way possible. He's doin' it freestyle...Because this is PM flick, you can expect good stunts. The pyrotechnics are cool and the car chase at the end is a blast. Jeff Fahey puts in an emotionless performance, but it works. The plot is silly and the dialogue worse, but that's part of the B-movie fun. If you like this one, I also recommend "Hologram Man". In the end: If you like Jeff Fahey (and who doesn't...) or PM movies (and who doesn't...), check this one out.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com
HaemovoreRex
Jeff Fahey stars in this amusing little addition to the extensive catalogue of action output from PM Entertainment. As with all output by the PM guys, you can therefore rest assured on lots of super cool car chases, fights, shooting and explosions will ensue and sure enough, this entry doesn't disappoint. What really makes this stand out though is the bizarre and somewhat ridiculous plot which involves a seventies disco group who take revenge upon a former fellow member after he makes the huge mistake of sampling some of their old material into modern gangster rap tracks(!!!!!!!) Well, how can anyone not warm to such an hilariously daft story line?Fahey turns in an incredibly laid back performance yet nonetheless, is great fun to watch as always and his new partner played by Michael Mcfall, is similarly entertaining in a role that had the budget been bigger, might have gone to Samuel Jackson.Well, what more can be said? If you've ever watched anything from the PM guys before, you'll know exactly what to expect and if you haven't yet had the pleasure of a PM release then why not take this opportunity to try one?
Frank Markland
Jeff Fahey stars as a mean spirited cop who hates hip hop (Something he shares in common with me.) however when various rappers are being murdered, it becomes obvious that someone has a vendetta against The Hound a renegade producer who plays hardball with various rappers (Willie Carpenter) however it's not him, rather it goes all the way back to the hound's disco roots. However what really ticks Jeff Fahey off is that his partner (Kenneth Tigar) is killed in the shootout. Fahey swears vengeance and along the way defines disco inferno. I myself was always into heavy metal, so I was never much for Hip Hop, however The Underground takes it's fairly silly plot and somehow makes it even more gleefully moronic than it sounds. However the silliness here is amplified by the clichés such as Fahey's troubled marriage with a supermodel. (Oh boy.) A new partner who is more into the hip hop scene and a disco villain so laughably improbable it just becomes enjoyable in a guilty pleasure way. Picking this up in the bargain bin section, in what marks as my binge into unknown PM titles that you find for 4.99, this has to be the silliest of all the PM titles. For goodness sake the villain is a ticked off disco artist, so that alone is why I love it. Jeff Fahey though seems out of place though, the movie would've been better with a younger actor, still I love it.* * out of 4-(Fair)
Zantara Xenophobe
WARNING: This review has some minor story SPOILERS, so you may not wish to read it.I admit that Jeff Fahey's name no longer attracts my attention to a movie. After all, the last movie I watched with him in it was the silly `Serpent's Lair.' What actually made me watch `The Underground' was the presence of my favorite actor, the late Brion James. James is good, as usual, as the police captain. Whenever he is on the screen, the movie is great. What surprised me is that whenever he is not on screen, the movie stayed good. Fahey turned in a good acting job here, and so did the rest of the cast.
`The Underground' has a simple plot about a detective on a case of a trio of guys that wear Abraham Lincoln masks as they murder up and coming rap stars. The rap stars all have a connection to a shady record producer, and Fahey and his partner are talking to the producer, nicknamed `The Hound,' when the killers strike. A rapper, a production crew, and Fahey's partner are left dead. Fahey gets a new partner, played by Michael McFall, and the two of them must adjust to each other before tracking down the killers. This doesn't sound like much, but it is much better than I have described. See, the killers are a former disco group from the 1970's called Las Vegas Disco Express. The Hound used to be a member, and recently used some of their old music in new rap music with a process known as `sampling.' The remaining Las Vegas Disco Express members are not pleased, and want to be reimbursed. I personally hate rap and disco, and I had the feeling that the makers of the movie shared my feeling on rap, mainly that rap artists that use sampling are wrongfully stealing from other (better) artists and have no real creativity themselves. The idea that disco artists were bumping off rap artists just seemed funny to me. Sorry, rap fans. In addition to this, there are also a couple of exciting car chase scenes that are done way better than the ones in many big budget movies. I felt they were very realistic thanks to the way director Cole S. McKay handled them. McKay also handled the scenes between Fahey and McFall well. The two actors have routine roles and they boost them above that blandness so that you love to watch them.
Unfortunately, the movie has a set of flaws, and they hurt the film badly. The first is the tired cliché of the detective's wife that can't cope with the detective's job. The scenes rightfully establish that Fahey has a life outside his job, but I wish they had come up with something better than that. Fahey's screen wife is Debbie James, whose film highlight is starring in `976-EVIL 2.' As his model-wife, she is lifeless. Another annoying problem is numerous times where someone will announce an incorrect body count. There are two shootouts where many people are left dead, but the dialogue only admits the deaths of the important characters. Flaw three is a big SPOILER, so don't go on if you are going to see it. It involved the ending, which ends too soon. The film abandons the fate of two of the three Las Vegas Disco Express members. It just stops without resolving that issue or even the issue of Fahey and his wife. It's too bad, because the movie is good otherwise, and I would have rated it higher. Zantara's score: 6 out of 10.