Tenderness (2008/I)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

John Polson

Writers (WGA):

Emil Stern (screenplay)
Robert Cormier (novel)

Release Date:

15 January 2009 (Israel)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

A policeman (Crowe) works to figure out whether a violent teen (Foster) murdered his family. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Michael Ahl	...	Police Officer
Vincent Bagnall	...	Guard
Tanya Clarke	...	Jackie Cristofuoro
Karina Colon	...	Juvenile Delinquent
Russell Crowe	...	Detective Cristofuoro
Laura Dern
Alexis Dziena	...	Maria
Jane Fergus	...	TV News Anchor
Kyle Fischbach	...	Prisoner
Jon Foster	...	Eric Poole
Dan Fountain	...	Prison Van Driver
Lars Gerhard	...	German Husband
Alicia Harding	...	Debbie
Mark Havlis	...	State Trooper #3
Tim Hopper	...	Dan Komenko
Ingrid Johnson	...	Amusement Park Mom
Philip E Jones	...	Prisoner
Michael Kelly	...	Gary
John T. Kupres	...	Juvenile Delinquent
David Larosa	...	Paul
C.S. Lee	...	Asian Cop
Shannon MacMillan	...	Park Ranger
Chris McMullin	...	Truck Stop Patron
Jack Moran II	...	Bowling Alley Employee
Keith Moyer	...	Amusement Park Dreg
Ben Rauch	...	Nice Guy
Jazmine Rodriguez	...	Alicia
Brian Patrick Russell	...	Facilities Director
Kenny Shapiro	...	News Reporter
Jake M. Smith	...	Spenser
Stewart Summers	...	TV News Reporter
Karen Summerton	...	Juvenile Delinquent
Sophie Traub	...	Lori
Ben Van Bergen	...	State Trooper
Glenn Wein
Jonathan Yvon	...	Prisoner

MPAA:

Rated R for disturbing violent and sexual content, and language.

Runtime:

Australia:101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Australia:M | USA:R | Netherlands:12

Filming Locations:

New York, USA

Company:

GreeneStreet Films

Trivia:

Russell Crowe filmed all of his scenes in 9 days.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross: (#11.6)" (2006)

It remains an occasionally intense but mostly routine and flat thriller

A man named Eric Poole (Jon Foster), who was sent to prison after murdering his parents and raping a girl as an adolescent, is released back into the free world. Living at home and deciding to investigate the colleges of America, Eric is tracked by a lonely girl named Lori (Sophie Traub). Lori has been following Eric's release in the papers and she remembers meeting him once from a brief chance encounter. After she sneaks into the back of his car, Eric and Lori eventually come together and stay on the road, gradually remembering when they first met. Eric is also pursued by an obsessed cop, Detective Cristofuoro (Russell Crowe), a man who is grieving in having to look after his paralysed wife.

Though an initially intense and interesting film, Tenderness directed by John Polson (who previously made Swimfan and Hide and Seek) remains a rather uneventful and often unconvincing crime thriller. The opening quarter of the film, while leisurely paced, is constructed to develop our interest into how these characters are interconnected with each other. Certainly there are a number of fascinating questions asked; such as why this teenage girl is unconcerned by the dangers of this lunatic and why Cristofuoro himself is to obsessed with his own pursuite, surely not just because of his instincts and his proper sense of the law. Where the film falls apart though is in its undeveloped answers to many of these. The girl's eventual fate is a grim and depressing one, and though we do see portions of her life as being undesirable - her mother has a new boyfriend moving into their house and Lori is forced to flash her breasts for a man's pleasure - there is never a completely satisfying closure to her unhappiness. Furthermore, Cristofuoro's insistence to follow Eric and try to catch him out leaves much to be desired for the character. He does not spend a great deal of time interacting with his target and merely describes it as his hobby. There must be a stronger grudge between the men, than a mere obsession; it remains a rather flat and uninteresting part.

As with the script, the performances of the film are relatively uneven as well. Russell Crowe is always a strong actor but he is at his best in portraying masculine figures of internal conflict. Here he is given a fairly routine and slightly disappointing role. His reliance on an American accent is at times jarring and unnecessary and like in Ridley Scott's film Body of Lies, he does not seem to have a great deal to do in the film. For such a powerful actor, his part is quite underwritten and does not benefit from a substantial level of character development. Sophie Traub as Lori is reasonable in her role, sometimes exuding emotion but occasionally irritable in trying to be funny and energetic. It is most disappointing that we never really reach a deeper understanding of her unhappiness and discomfort in life. It would have contributed a much stronger emotional pull to the film. As Eric, Jon Foster is sometimes intense but mostly blank, never entirely capturing the chilling sense of menace and dread that he could have. There are moments that we suspect Eric may succumb to his desires to kill but this level of tension needed to be more persistent to illuminate the threat that he is. There are certainly some assets to the film; the flashbacks to Eric's brutal crimes are used to show his current struggle of emotions. Yet as with Lori, we never gain a significant insight into his true psychosis.

Tenderness would have benefited from a stronger script that would allow more opportunities to delve into the anxiety of both a teenager and the internal confliction of a teenager. As it stands, it never reaches the heights of a film like The Woodsman and it remains an occasionally intense but mostly routine and flat thriller that owed a lot more to the abilities of its star, Russell Crowe.