Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Jayden-Lee Thomson One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Winifred The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

MissSimonetta Contrary to popular belief, the gangster picture only grew more popular with the coming of sound and did not originate there. Underworld (1927) is not the first gangster movie made in Hollywood but it is one of the most seminal. It brings all the images and tropes we associate with the Jazz Age/Great Depression impression of the genre to the forefront: gunfights in the dark, brassy molls, and speakeasies flowing with booze and jazz music.The story is simple, a love triangle with rather flat characterizations, but it's forgivable because everything is played with such grand style and flair. The performances are strong, with Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook, and the shamefully underrated George Bancroft bringing much to their one-note characters. Von Sternberg's direction and Bert Glennon's cinematography are just gorgeous, elevating the gritty urban setting to almost Gothic levels in the moody black and white lighting.A great gangster flick, one I actually prefer to the Oscar-nominated The Racket from the same year. It has Thomas Meighan, yes, but not nearly as much atmosphere.

evanston_dad A stylish late silent from Josef von Sternberg about a crime lord (George Bancroft) who makes over an alcoholic bum (Clive Brook) only to succumb to murderous jealousy when he suspects his girlfriend (Evelyn Brent) of falling for the reformed and refined gentleman.Von Sternberg makes active and imaginative use of his camera, and the film is crisp and dynamic. You can tell watching it that it influenced a thousand gangster pictures that came after it, and Warner Bros. pretty much adopted its gritty look wholesale for the slew of cheap crime fills it would go on to make throughout the 1930s."Underworld" brought Ben Hecht the very first Oscar for Original Story, which at the time was the closest thing to an award for Best Original Screenplay that the Academy doled out.Grade: A

Michael_Elliott Underworld (1927) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Big-time gangster Bull Weed (George Bancroft) takes pity on an alcoholic lawyer (Clive Brooke) and gets him cleaned up and back into shape. Soon the lawyer and the gangster's moll (Evelyn Brent) begin to fall in love but they both owe Bull everything they own so this puts a hamper on their relationship. D.W. Griffith is credited with making the first gangster film and 1915's REGENERATION gets credit for being the first feature-length film to feature gangsters but I think it's fair to say that UNDERWORLD is what really shaped the genre for decades to come. When you watch this film you can see the impact it would have on Warner and their upcoming gangster pictures with Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. You can also see the impact it would have on films like SCARFACE. The Oscar-winning screenplay from Ben Hecht really puts us into the life of gangsters and their lifestyles better than any movie up to this point so I'm sure that's the reason this thing went over so well with people back when it was released. The most impressive thing for me was the beautiful look of the film and it's clear von Sternberg wanted to show the fast, loose and dangerous world that these men lived in. I really loved how the director would shoot the more outrageous stuff extremely fast and almost out of control as this really did make you feel as if you're were involved with these men and you could feel the pace that their lives worked. One of the best scenes happen early on when the lawyer, still working like a bum, gets picked on by another gangster to get some money out of a dog bowl. Just take a look at this sequence and see how von Sternberg slows things down just to add some built up tension that something bad could happen at any second. This type of suspense is used in the same fashion later in the film when the moll comes under attack by this same gangster. Bancroft is downright marvelous in the role of Bull and you can easily see the influence he's have on everyone who would play a gangster. I loved the toughness he brought to the role and in the scenes where he goes off you can't help but understand and feel why everyone would be frightened of him. Bancroft has the perfect look for the role and you can't help but feel he was born to play the part. Brooke is also very good in his more serious and straight role. Brent is wonderful as well and we also get strong support from Fred Kohler as the rival gangster and Larry Semon gets a few funny scenes of comic relief. I did have a few problems with the film and that includes the ending, which I found to be quite bad and it really took away from how the characters were throughout the film. I won't ruin everything but I didn't believe what happened and thought the film should have ended in a different way. I also thought the love story could have used a couple more scenes just to build it up as the relationship between the lawyer and moll seemed to happen a bit too fast. With that said, this is a very important film and it's easy to see why it was such a hit in its day and why it would influence so many.

plaidpotato One of the great joys of prohibition-era gangster films is the colorful dialogue spat out by the likes of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. As that element would, obviously, be missing from a silent film, I wasn't sure how I would react to Underworld.Not to worry. This is a great film, one of the best prohibition-era gangster films I've seen, ranking slightly ahead of Little Caesar and the Public Enemy, and maybe only slightly below Scarface (1932). Tough, tense, tightly written--interestingly, Howard Hawks is credited for the scenario--and with gorgeous DARK cinematography and Josef von Sternberg's usual excellence in direction. I barely missed the lack of gangster-speak.I suppose this film was a template upon which a lot of gangster films were based. It struck me while watching it how much it had in common with the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990)--a love triangle between a mob boss, his moll, and his right hand man. And it's all about the gangsters' peculiar code of ethics.I'd rate it a perfect 10, but for a muddled and badly-handled prison break sequence, which I watched three times and still couldn't figure out. Maybe I'm just dense; maybe it was actually a genius bit of filmmaking and it just flew over my head, but for now, 9/10.