One of my favourite ever TV series from the days when Channel 4 (in UK) would present some of the quirkiest television dramas. It's a comedy-thriller which manages at times to be both very funny and at others very thrilling, but is very difficult to categorise in a way which does it justice. Perhaps its greatest strength is that it has a bizarre storyline which keeps taking unpredictable twists so that you can never anticipate what it's going to throw at you next. So you sit there and enjoy the ride.
Trying to describe the plot is a bit futile - basically 2 ordinary boring 40 year old (give or take) siblings get caught up in old- school gangster feuds in suburban London (or wherever it is) - because the switchback journey to its finale is what makes it great viewing.
Excellent acting and script, good character development for some very strange characters, lots of laugh-out-loud one-liners, other moments of carefully built high tension, some very poignant sub- plots - it all comes together very nicely. There are a couple of brutal scenes which now - nearly 20 years later - look fairly dated and unnecessary and some of the gender portrayals are a bit old- fashioned. But these are more reflections of what was acceptable in 1990s TV than anything else.
Never released on DVD as far as I know, but definitely worth revisiting if you can find it - I did, and it was just as good as I remembered from its original TV screening.
Trivia: it was produced by Hat Trick Productions, who also produce the BBC series "Have I Got News For You", which often features one of its founders - Andy Hamilton - as a panelist. Andy was one of the screenwriters for Underworld and makes a couple of uncredited cameo appearances as the neighbour with the flat cap. Some of Underworld's funniest and/or more surreal moments very much reflect the spirit of his contributions to Have I Got News For You.
Trying to describe the plot is a bit futile - basically 2 ordinary boring 40 year old (give or take) siblings get caught up in old- school gangster feuds in suburban London (or wherever it is) - because the switchback journey to its finale is what makes it great viewing.
Excellent acting and script, good character development for some very strange characters, lots of laugh-out-loud one-liners, other moments of carefully built high tension, some very poignant sub- plots - it all comes together very nicely. There are a couple of brutal scenes which now - nearly 20 years later - look fairly dated and unnecessary and some of the gender portrayals are a bit old- fashioned. But these are more reflections of what was acceptable in 1990s TV than anything else.
Never released on DVD as far as I know, but definitely worth revisiting if you can find it - I did, and it was just as good as I remembered from its original TV screening.
Trivia: it was produced by Hat Trick Productions, who also produce the BBC series "Have I Got News For You", which often features one of its founders - Andy Hamilton - as a panelist. Andy was one of the screenwriters for Underworld and makes a couple of uncredited cameo appearances as the neighbour with the flat cap. Some of Underworld's funniest and/or more surreal moments very much reflect the spirit of his contributions to Have I Got News For You.