6 Underground is a 2019 action film about six untraceable agents, totally off the grid, who’ve buried their pasts so they can change the future.
A very, very rich tech guy, who we call One (Ryan Reynolds) is all done with the crap infesting this world, and when opportunity strikes, fakes his own death, recruiting a host of others with various unique skills to fall off the grid and becomes “ghosts” on a mission. With Two (Melanie Laurent), Three (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Four (Ben Hardy), Five (Adria Arjona), Six (Dave Franco), and Seven (Corey Hawkins), they set their sights on Rovach Alimov (Lior Raz), a ruthless dictator, who has taken to targeting his own people with chemical weapons, and dastardly plans to do worse. Along the way, as they work to stop the acquisition of sarin gas, things get out of hand, leading to a showdown at, of course, the Day of the Dead.
Director Michael Bay isn’t exactly known for being subtle. Most likely, when you just read his name, everything you thought this movie might be about just went out the window in favor of a more absurd collection of insanity. And good news, you’re exactly right. That starts with an chaotic opening twenty-odd minute car chase through the streets of iconic Italy that sees one member of the team taken off the list, though not the one you think as you’re convinced it will be another, that one bleeding out in the back seat. Either way, we’re “treated” to a barrage of car chase tropes with loads of bullets, near misses, explosions, slo-motion, house and classical music, and Reynolds mugging his way through it as only Reynolds can. Bodies fall like dominoes.
Either way, Bay embraces his Bay-i-ness, seemingly poking fun at himself in delivering a bombastic series of set pieces loosely glued together with a curious story that is about as blunt as a sledgehammer on sewing needle. To say he reaches for excess is an understatement with any film he throws at the screen, but with 6 Underground he finds new meaning for the word, tapping into his past while ramping up the WTF? to well, WTF?
For most, that’s all you need in a Bay movie. And with Reynolds a natural fit into the Bay mold, able to say lines like “We are all going to die. May as well do it while we’re alive” and keep a straight face, or at least the straightest face he can muster is kind of disarming. Not all that unsurprising, he doesn’t stray far from the Reynolds we’ve all come to love, made so popular in the perfectly cast Deadpool franchise. He and his able team take on the most rote of bad guys a movie screenwriter can come up with, painting him into generic corners of been there seen that while not entirely being wrong about the horrors of such a reality.
Either way, it’s all handled with slick high powered production value, top quality visual effects, some genuine laughs and “oh my” bits of uber-adrenaline pumping moments laced with the expected contrived emotional consequences. We travel the world with wild abandon and the film does exactly as it promises, surging forward with a glut of nonsense and flashy glitter that is sure to please fans of such. It relies on its sense of familiarity to do as it does and for what Bay offers in entertainment, succeeds just fine.