Tenderness (2009)

A guy gets out of prison when he's 18 after just a few short years... for killing both his parents. Apparently, it was due to the medication he was on at the time... and this held up in court. Yeah, right. Not in America. For some reason, he also has his criminal record expunged. Lucky him. A sort-of retired detective, who suspects him of murdering more, tails him on his release... and so does a teenage girl, who has a scrapbook full of his news articles and a turbulent home life. What's gonna happen? Well quite a bit, as you'll see.Despite what the blurb on the box may say, this is NOT an 'edge of your seat thriller'. It's more of a quiet reflection of three damaged people who get caught up in each other lives... some possibly have hope, but others are beyond saving. We KNOW Jon Foster's character is a merciless killer... but we don't see much evidence of that in his calm demeanor. It's always the quiet ones, eh? And Russell Crowe cuts a sympathetic figure as the lawman with a comatose wife, and a dogged determination to keep this dude in jail, even resorting to...As for the strange young lady who turns up in the back of Foster's car one day, now THERE'S an interesting case. Portrayed by Sophie Traub, she's been abused by her stepfather, ignored by her birth mother and forced to expose herself at work to a perverted boss. So, in perspective, her infatuation with this criminal may not be so odd after all. Of course, she has other reasons to follow him, which I wouldn't dream of revealing. Do you want me to be one of those jerks who loads his reviews with SPOILERS? On the basis as to whether it's actually any good, there are a few gaps in logic... such as the policeman who stops the car of a guy who's just been imprisoned for murder when it U-turns off the road... sees a schoolgirl in the front seat with him... and lets them both leave with barely a word. Not to mention the ending, which I'm sure will be a divisive one for the majority of the audience. But it's well acted, holds the attention and cannot be accused of being predictable. In fact, that's the last thing it is... 6/10

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.

Russell Crowe as a detective who is living somewhat in limbo. He has an instinct Eric Komenko, a juvenile who killed his parents may kill again. So he follows him through a void of nameless suburbs in upstate New York.The character of Lori, a disaffected teen who tags along with Eric. At first we aren't aware of her psychological motivation.There is a connection Lori has to Eric, the actress portraying Lori is particularly affecting, she likes Eric, but he is interested in Maria, a girl he met in prison. Lori is a tragic figure, trapped and insecure. Wanting "out" but not sure how to change her life.Eric is in his own way trapped from his past actions.And Russell Crowe is very realistic here,an older retired detective, his wife is critically ill and this is sort of a final mission he feels he should complete.The film is a bit slow but psychologically interesting. Crowe is out of character, and does well here as an 'everyman' trying to accomplish one possibly meaningful thing in his dead-end career.Mysterious and ephemeral ending, but recommended.

This movie was a great disappointment to watch due to a number of factors, all of which combine to make for a flat and unexciting viewing experience.First off, it is clear from the outset that Jon Foster killed his parents but had that crime expunged from his record, so Detective Cristofuoro's relentless pursuit of him is altogether pointless. Cops don't just chase people around like that because they THINK they MAY do something, they go after people who have already done bad things, and in this case Foster hadn't done anything to merit this pursuit. The "dramatic" scene towards the end of the movie when Det. Cristofuoro and his cadre of New York state troopers try to arrest Foster was the breaking point for me, as they treated him as though he had actually committed a crime when all he had done was drive to see the girl Maria who had written him a note right before his release from jail (apparently in an inadequately-explained attempt to entrap him trying to kill another young woman).Then there's Lori. It becomes clear at some point that her mom's boyfriend Gary has molested her at least once in the past, but I felt no sympathy for her whatsoever in her neurotic and obsessive pursuit of Foster. By halfway through the movie I almost WANTED her to die and get the plot going! Her eventual suicide by drowning was entirely anti-climactic and really did nothing for the plot or to develop any feelings of empathy on the part of the viewer with her character.Going back to Foster, he acts creepy, and it is made clear that he killed his parents because they found evidence of his killing and posthumous defilement of an unnamed girl who is flashed to at various time throughout the movie. His alleged religiousness simply serves to make him a little creepier without serving any deeper purpose (except perhaps to point out that the director has a dismal opinion of Christianity).His ending up in jail at the end of the movie was enough for me to exclaim that this crapper of a film wasted 101 minutes of my life I will never get back.In short: too many glaring plot holes, and insufficient character development. I just didn't care about any of the characters even by the end of the movie, and certainly got no plot closure.