by SARAH ROWLAND

Don't expect Jamie Bell to be pirouetting on the rooftops of Northern England in this southern-fried family thriller. The bloody idiot from Billy Elliot has traded in his ballerina shoes for blackened bare feet with some gangrene to accessorize. Here, the freckle-faced actor plays Chris, a 17-year-old hauling his ass through the muddy outback of rural Georgia as he tries to outrun gun-toting red necks. Cue the banjo.

Undertow is the true story of two feuding brothers whose seething resentments have been building up as long as the pit stains on their wife beaters. Deel (Josh Lucas) is convinced that his post-prison life is in ruins because his sibling John (Dermot Mulroney) took his girl and their father's inheritance years ago. Now Deel returns to get what's rightfully his, "gad dammit!" But first he has to slit John's throat and get the loot back from his nephews, as played by Bell and Devon Alan, who eerily resembles a countrified Brian Jones. Cue the sitar .

Fearing the law would believe their uncle over them, the boys hightail it off their farm and make a run for the Mexican border. Along the way, the destitute runaways are helped by several poetically damaged characters, including a punk rock street hag who has an opportunity to rob the boys of their worldly possessions.

As the elder of the two orphans, Chris is forced to become an insta-dad to his little brother, who suffers from a rare form of poor man's bulimia: he binges on various toxic substances found in tool sheds, as well as barnyard excrement. Sadly, though, everyone is oblivious to the gaunt 10-year-old with petrified breath as he slowly poisons himself in an attempt to purge his body of all the bad blood in his family.

Arkansas-born director David Gordon Green (George Washington) stays true to the reality of the South's po by showing their bestial way of life. But instead of holding them up for ridicule with unintelligible drawls and illiteracy gags, he chooses to tell an earnest story through an emaciated child's observations, allowing us to see the hunting beauty in something as ugly as this American tragedy. Cue the gospel choir.

Undertow opens Friday, Nov. 5

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