gradyharp Director John Polson is now well known as frequent director on television series such as 'Elementary', 'Blue Bloods', 'The Mentalist', 'The Good Wife', ' Without a Trace' etc. TENDERNESS is an early effort (2009) but the singe is evident. This little film slipped by everyone despite a strong cast – likely because the subject matter is rather difficult to swallow, especially as related by the time flips the picture takes in explaining the story.Buffalo detective Lt. Cristofuoro (Russell Crowe), whose catatonic wife is in hospital, takes a special interest in Eric Komenko (an excellent Jon Foster!), a juvenile who killed his parents and will be freed on his 18th birthday. So has Lori Cranston (Sophie Traub), 15 or 16, her body fully developed and the object of lust by her boss and her mother's new boyfriend. She keeps a scrapbook about Eric, and when he's released from custody, she hides in the backseat of his car, insisting he take her with him on a trip toward Albany where he's planning to meet a girl. Cristofuoro is certain Eric will kill again, visits Eric's dead mother's sister Aunt Teresa (Laura Dern, excellent) with whom he lives since his release from Juvenile Hall, agrees with Cristofuoro's intuition and encourages him to pursue Eric in Albany. What happens on the trip to Albany – the disintegration of Eric's fragile sociopathic psyche and Lori's obsession with Eric's none too subtle need to kill leads to a surprising end. It is a film that deals with compulsions on every level and in every character – especially 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.Jon Foster is the center of attention in the story and is supported the excellent work of Russell Crowe and Laura Dern. The supporting cast is strong. Serial killers continue to make an impact on writers, but this story takes a deeper look into the psyche of the main character, if not by words then more by body language.

Robert J. Maxwell Another serial killer movie but this one is different. A teen-aged boy, Jon Foster, murders his mother and father and perhaps others whose bodies aren't found. When he's released from a juvenile facility, the detective Russel Crowe is waiting outside for him with a kindly smile and a gift -- a crucifix. During an amiable chat, Crowe tells Foster that he's a psychopath and will kill again unless he's stopped. Crowe takes on the job, following him from Buffalo almost to Albany.Along the way, Foster has picked up a sixteen-year-old girl who has run away from a home she dislikes, although it seems normal enough to a viewer. The girl is Sophie Traub. She's plain of feature, not unattractive, and has a dumpy figure like so many teens, and she knows all about Foster's criminal past. Foster attempts to get rid of her but she's tenacious. He plans to kill her twice -- once with a towel, once with a hammer -- but each time is interrupted by the police. It doesn't take the skills of a mind reader to know that Traub has a death with. She lies on a motel bed, exposes her throat, and begs him to "Do it; DO it!" He doesn't do it.It has its moments, but frankly I don't get it. It's a turgid and sometimes confusing story. Laura Dern, my co-star, shows up in a small part. Crowe's wife has been in an auto accident and evidently is now a vegetable, although this has nothing to do with the story itself. I'd have to guess that the bedridden wife is there in order for us to see how tenderly Crowe washes her insensate body, then make an interpretive leap from that fact to Crowe's wanting to keep the boy in the slams to prevent him from damaging anyone else's family the way his wife has been damaged. I'm not the athlete I used to be and had trouble making that leap, succeeding only after three or four tries.If the young girl wants to be killed -- okay. We can all understand that. But Jon Foster's character is impenetrable. He rarely speaks and when he does it's some bourgeois bromide. I have no idea what's going on inside his head, except that he's ridden with guilt, which any certified psychopath wouldn't be. He has multiple opportunities to murder the blond girl but the only times he tries is when he's thwarted.The melancholic music -- including one of those sad, folksy ballads accompanied by a solo guitar, now arriving on the Leonard Cohen express -- tells us that everything is pretty bleak. And the score is right. It's depressing. Some things in its favor: it's far from being just another slasher movie. There's no blood at all. The characters are complex. And an ominous quality hangs over the entire picture. Some will find it artful.

MrGKB ...and "Tenderness," the very talented director, John "FlashForward" Polson and equally talented writer, Emil "The Life Before Her Eyes" Stern, have crafted a fine adaptation of Robert "The Chocolate War" Cormier's novel that manages to remain true to the source despite certain alterations. I base this on secondhand references, not having read Cormier's book, but have been motivated to put it on order at my library solely on the basis of this film. That's how good it is.[11.11.11 edit: library copy summarily read; some details are changed, but the core story remains essentially the same. The changes to the cop were obviously to get Crowe on board, and to the final climax of the plot to accommodate audience expectations. A decent, quick read]Although Russell "Romper Stomper" Crowe gets top billing (an obvious move to gain an audience), his supporting role of persistent cop is really that of a framework voice-over, and his performance is competent enough, even if any of dozens of "lesser" actors could have assayed the character perfectly well; the story truly belongs to Jon "my older brother is better known" Foster as a young sociopath recently released from prison for the murder of his parents, and Sophie "still learning the business" Traub as the troubled teen who imagines she's in love with him. Both fledgling actors more than hold their own against Crowe by forming a relationship that both intrigues and mystifies its audience; check out Traub's spot-on expressions in scene after scene, or those on Foster as he seeks to restrain inner demons. I suspect the book does a better job of explication of motive, but the themes of isolation and yearning that run through the film are compelling enough to carry the story forward to its bittersweet conclusion."Tenderness" is nicely lensed by longtime Clint Eastwood collaborator, Tom "I've worked with his daughter, too" Stern, and moodily scored by television workhorse, Jonathan "I'm not the guy who sells beer" Goldsmith. Shot in and around Buffalo, NY, the film sports an anywhere vibe that overrides the specificity of its setting, emphasizing the universality of its themes. All in all, a fine piece of indie filmmaking. Highly recommended to all devotees of quality under-the-radar movies.

tcab The best I can say about this movie is that it provides suspense by constantly suggesting that something might happen. But nothing convincing or satisfying ever does.But it has serious problems with characters. A case can be made that Lori, who perhaps witnessed Eric kill a teenage girl, is traumatized and fixated with horror and fascination and thus becomes Eric's perverse groupie. Additionally she was abused by her mother's boyfriend and by her boss. So all those elements in her chaotic young life can form a coherent picture of a girl who, in a sort of Wagnerian lovedeath, finally commits suicide. (Sophie Traub, the actress who plays Lori, is a classic German "Brunhilde" type, especially in the scene where her hair is in braids. All that's missing is the lederhosen and a stein of beer.)The Russell Crowe character tells Eric, and us, that he, Eric, is psychotic and hence destined to kill again, a simplistic viewpoint that borders on the inane. Ironically, Crowe's character is the only one in the movie who behaves as though he might be psychotic.But the Erich character portrait is totally screwed up and psychologically preposterous. We have to accept, from his actions alone, that he's a murderer, but he never acts psychotic or like a person capable of murder. He appears to be a normal, if morose and disturbed, teenager. And why wouldn't he be, given what he's been through? He gives the lie to the label of "psychotic" by the intense pain he suffers over Lori's death. A psychotic would be incapable of feeling such empathy. The movie teases us with instances where it appears he is attempting to murder Lori, touches that are totally out of character for the movie and surely resulted from someone heavy-handedly screwing around with the script in a dimwitted attempt to make it more exciting.