“My wife likes to say there are two kinds of people. Those who are chasing pleasure and those who are running from pain. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know. What I do know is this. Pleasure helps you forget. But pain, pain forces you to hope. You tell yourself this can’t last. Today could be different. Today, something just might change.”
This is what Russell Crowe’s (Gladiator, Cinderella Man) character (Lt. Cristofuoro) says at the end of John Polson’s 2007 drama Tenderness. It is an excellent quote that all of us can ponder and adapt to how we live our lives…Unfortunately, the quote makes you want to nap rather than consider this imaginably meaningful phrase as the movie concludes.
This is what Russell Crowe’s (Gladiator, Cinderella Man) character (Lt. Cristofuoro) says at the end of John Polson’s 2007 drama Tenderness. It is an excellent quote that all of us can ponder and adapt to how we live our lives…Unfortunately, the quote makes you want to nap rather than consider this imaginably meaningful phrase as the movie concludes.
The story follows a serial killer named Eric Poole (Jon Foster – The Door in the Floor, Terminator 3). It is Eric’s 18th birthday, and he has just been released from a juvenile detention center after completing a sentence for violently murdering his parents and raping a girl when he was a young teenager. Lt. Cristofuoro is convinced that Eric will strike again and makes it his mission to follow and stop him before he can do that. A lonely girl named Lori (Sophie Traub – The Interpreter) has been following his story in the paper and makes it her intention to track and eventually hook up with Eric after his release.
While this movie had potential, it did not succeed in its delivery. The premise of the film is fantastic. A prison release of a serial killer and what he might do now that he is free, and a cop who makes it his obsession to stop the man. However, the storytelling was unconvincing. We learn early on that all three of these characters are troubled. We are aware of Eric’s situation. Cristoforo has a catatonic wife he cares for during his hours of not working. Eric has some connection with Cristofuro’s wife, but we aren’t made aware of it. Lori is an insecure teenage girl whose mother has forgotten about her due to a boyfriend who has moved into her house. The fact that the boyfriend forces Lori to show her breasts to him makes us want to see Lori as even more of a victim in this story. However, we don’t care about her. One reason might be that, despite throwing herself at him, Eric seems less than interested in her, preferring to touch himself while looking at a motel maid walking down the hall over having Lori all to himself. Another reason we fail to see Lori as a sympathetic victim is because she has put herself in this situation, and we do not understand why.
Rather than building up one of these three characters so we can understand what they feel and what their motivations are, Polson instead builds each of these characters equally, and thus, we only understand 1/3 of each. A single story about one of these characters could have brought intrigue, but we are left with three underdeveloped stories that don’t interest us.
Russell Crowe did an admirable job as Lt. Cristoforo. He might have seen what I saw when he read the script, which was a potentially great story. However, if you rated how great a trailer looks, he might have checked out Polson’s credits, including Hide and Seek, perhaps one of the most disappointing movies of all time. But as this movie sleepwalks its way towards its meaningless conclusion, you can’t help but wonder if Crowe thought to himself, “I won a Best Actor Academy Award for Gladiator and a Best Actor Nomination for A Beautiful Mind. What am I doing making this movie?” And as the movie trickled toward the credits, I wondered, “What am I doing watching this movie?”
Plot 9.5/10
Character Development 5/10
Character Chemistry 2/10
Acting 6.5/10
Screenplay 4/10
Directing 3/10
Cinematography 7/10
Sound6/10
Hook and Reel 2/10
Universal Relevance 7/10
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