I thought I had this all figured out from the first 5 minutes. I only picked this movie due to Jason Clarke and Clifton Collins Jr. But no, I was wrong and very surprised to find out how good this really was. Under Still Waters has a twisty plot that holds your attention for every small little detail. Makes you want to watch it again just to see what you might have missed. I had no idea what was going to happen and I had no idea who did what and why.Didn't see the end coming and it nearly hit me with a brick when it did. Really good movie and the characters were perfectly casted. Beautiful location too, everything was great about this movie, well done.

Charlie (Lake Bell) and Andrew (Jason Clarke), a married couple with issues (but which one isn't) plan a summer vacation by the lake. On the way to their hideout they almost run over Jacob (Clifton Collins Jr.), a biker run out of gas and attempting to hitch a ride. The pair soon invite him over to their residence to pick up a cannister of gas, but the stay prolongs itself and inexorably tension starts building up between the distinctive trio.Clifton Collins Jr. does pull off an assured performance as the odd man out with his frisky cocksure persona, this, coupled with reliable output from his other two co-actors, does well to allure for the full length of the movie. Nonetheless, after an engaging start, the movie fails to take charge of the story, instead submissively forgoes its promise to deliver a seductive well-devised psychological thriller, instead whisking away into pretty standard territory in an uninspiring fashion. It ends up as usual fare, but with some glaring flaws, which degrade the overall potential. Several scenes attempt to construe a looming tension, a thrill factor, but end up with some appalling misfires, especially one slow motion sequence, where Jacob 'fires' an at Charlie. Rife with flashbacks, each of them fails to build non-pretentious back-story, but succeed in derailing suspense. After this indescript build-up we move on to the final act, where a rushed pay-off thwarts remnants of potential leaving viewers unengaged and ultimately laugh-prone.The key problem seems to lie fully on the shoulders of an underdeveloped script, which gives a propitious outline devoid however of elaborate or conscientious dialogue capable of lifting the end result above your average Tuesday night fare.

About the only thing this would-be Hitchcock rip-off has going for it is a cool DVD cover picture of lead actress Lake Bell up to her chin in a lake. Unfortunately, this shot is NOT from a scene in the movie. Worse yet, this picture is more interesting than anything that actually IS shown in the film. In an apparent effort to seem clever, UNDER STILL WATERS writer\director Carolyn Miller throws in one after another increasingly incomprehensible plot twist as this lame flick nears its totally inscrutable finale. Apparently Miller feels viewers should be forced to read between the lines, and fill in all the blanks by extrapolating what the missing scenes would have looked like if she had been able to fit more of the script into her shooting schedule. I say, to heck with that. If I'm shelling out 50 cents to rent a movie, I do not want to be forced into doing $40,000 worth of "script doctor" work in my head in order to complete what the writer\director MAY have wished to convey on-screen (but failed abysmally to do so). If you have been able to stomach UNDER STILL WATERS all the way through to the end, ask yourself these questions: did deputy Buford REALLY exist, or was he just a figment of someone's imagination, and if so, whose? Better yet, whether real or imagined, WHY kill him?

This movie seems to be widely unknown, which doesn't surprise me, as it is a pretty poor movie in every way.I personally thought this movie was a disgrace. Its story was uninteresting and illogical, there wasn't a single character who could be described as interesting or likable, the film was very badly made, the settings and scenario were generally crude. The characters were very annoying and had absolutely no chemistry.I expected this to be a different kind of movie (from what I read about it before watching). What I got was the absurd story of a couple who meet a bandit. The woman seems to have a love affair with both men and at the end the good guy becomes bad and the bad guy is supposed to be the good guy?? What was *this*? No more comments.