Search - Tenderness on DVD

Interesting Look at Compulsions

Compay | New Orleans, LA | 04/20/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The first thing to know about Tenderness is that it's a crime drama, not an edge-of-your seat thriller. While it does offer suspense from time to time, don't expect Silence of the Lambs.

What I found most interesting about this movie were the compulsions by the major characters. A self-destructive teen obsessed with a murderer, a young man obsessed with killing girls, and a weary detective obsessed with keeping the young man behind bars.

In the film From Dusk Till Dawn, we get glimpses of compulsions by Tarantino's character. With Eric in Tenderness, those compulsions are amplified. We're able to see the wheels turn in his head whenever opportunities for him to murder present themselves. He battles his inner demons with a sense of confliction so apparent that you can see it in his face. Those feelings, as well as the disturbing vibe of his admirer, make for an interesting movie.

The movie isn't a cult classic, of course. There are a few plot holes, as well as established actors who get only moments of screen time. My only real complaint is that we're given a sense of how disturbed the two lead characters are, but the film never delves into what made them that way. Eric doesn't seem to require state-mandated therapy for chemical imbalances, so the audience never fully understands what motivates him to kill.

If you're looking for an exciting crime drama, this may not be for you. If you're looking for something more in the way of a subtle psychological thriller, Tenderness is better than most Redbox flicks. Rent it once before deciding if you want to buy the DVD."

Keeps you wondering...

JESSE DEROUEN | USA | 04/16/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Don't expect it to make any sense until the end. Even then, it feels like it has holes and filler at the same time.

I felt the plot stretched in too many directions and lacked a clear story. I found the characters interesting but ultimately difficult to "position" in the story. It felt like a mystery, to be honest, because so much of it doesn't make sense, and it was not suspenseful enough to be considered a suspense movie.

Parts of the movie are shown at the end that explain why certain things happened in the beginning. Fine, but I felt I was trying too hard to imagine what the "point" of certain scenes were until the very end. Only at the end does it seem to quickly "wrap up" and the characters' previous actions (what you remember...) make more sense.

I found it interesting to watch, but it lacks coherence."

Surprisiingly poor

TheProphetFromTrailopen.com | midwest | 04/14/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"It is always a shock when top-flight actors like Russell Crowe get caught in messes like this. I can only imagine the pre-production ideas that must have surrounded this turkey. Crowe plays a kind of (?) retired cop who has a comatose wife that plays absolutely no part in the movie, but is tossed in there anyway to show... What? Why? There is also a queer notion that the murdering youth's church is solidly behind him, and he continually prays before eating, yet this point is also never developed. When the kid yells "you have no right to detain me!" to Crowe, we have to agree with him but this part of the movie (why someone not on the force has these arbitrary powers...?) is never explored either.

When the girl and the guy are driving down the freeway, and the next shot is they are in a totally removed abandoned trailer because the girl "has to use the bathroom," we have to wonder if the production people need more or less drugs to remind them of something called 'continuity.' To make matters worse, Crowe shows up two minutes behind them, when he wasnt even tailing them! Altho he's only twenty yards from two cars, Russell's character cannot hear them drive away either. It's these kinds of sophomoric and egotistical director's choices that make this movie a total clunker.
Altho we are led to believe the main character's killing of a young girl years before was discovered by his mother and that's why he killed both his parents, this thread is left dangling to an audience that quickly thinks "who cares?" The female star is so vapid and annoying that one is hoping the killer will soon dispose of her, but he is also so uninteresting and confused that we wonder where this film is going rather quickly.
The main girl looking to get murdered by this tentative, newly released killer of his parents is also poorly drawn, with some examples of decadence, but for her kinda (?) rape we rely on hearsay.The production never really decides what it is about. If it's supposed to be a girl looking to be a "prey" then it's rather poorly written from that point as well.
The fact that the killer doesn't want her to die at the end is also rather non-sequiter as he was ready to kill her earlier. There is simply no "juice" in the film that makes you care whether the killer wanted to murder her or not; or deserves to go back to jail for doing so."

Tenderness

Arnita D. Brown | USA | 04/15/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Set in New York State, the story center's on juvenile murderer, Eric Poole, who at 18 is released from jail having served his sentence for the murder of a young girl. Russell Crowe plays the hard-bitten detective who put him away and who is sure that Poole is a potential serial killer who will re-offend. He makes it his mission to keep Poole under surveillance as he sets off on a seemingly innocent road trip up-state. But all is not as it seems as Poole soon finds himself on the run with a young girl who has become obsessed with him and may or may not have been witness to the first murder. All the professional elements are present: acting, directing, lighting, set design, and even a minimal amount of music. "Tenderness" its a really simple movie about very complex characters. Everyone has their motives, their back story and while the ride is not as fun or well done as it could, it closes pretty well. Recommended for those of you who enjoy slow suspense, character driven thrillers.

"