Tenderness
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Eric Poole is a convicted teenage serial killer. Lorelei "Lori" Cranston is a troubled 15-year-old girl.
As a little boy in New England, Eric Poole already exhibited symptoms of a sociopath. He was suspected of murdering several young girls, but also murdered his mother and stepfather, and was convicted for those deaths. He convinced investigators that he killed his guardians out of self-defense with a false story of abuse.
Lori is described as a beautiful girl with a very mature body at a young age. Consequently she must constantly deal with the wanted and unwanted sexual attention she receives from men. She has a tendency to fixate of men, and will pursue them until she has put her mouth on theirs.
Detective Jake Proctor always suspected that Eric was guilty of killing the other girls and had fabricated the abuse story. He is determined to prove that Eric is a serial killer.
At 18, Eric is released from the juvenile detention center he has been held in and immediately starts looking for a new victim. Lori sees him on TV, fixates on him, and runs away from home to find him while Detective Proctor begins setting a trap to catch Eric before he can kill again.

Review: Foster is a psychopathic killer who Crowe feels is apt to kill again, with vulnerable underage Traub the likely victim.
The character played by Crowe is not drawn well into events; he and his invalid wife are far too detached from the main characters.****** Tenderness (1/15/09) John Polson ~ Jon Foster, Sophie Traub, Russell Crowe, Laura Dern.
No, 'Tenderness' is actually substantial proof that Polson does have some talent in his bones after all.After several years of juvenile incarceration for the horrific murders of his parents, Eric Poole (Jon Foster) is released back into the world amidst much controversy.
While dealing with his wife's terminal condition, Retired Detective Cristofuoro (Russell Crowe) keeps close watch on Eric after his release waiting for him to slip up.
Fueled by an obsession by a seemingly chance encounter with Eric before the murders, a young and immature teen, Lori (Sophie Traub), forces a second encounter and finds herself accompanying Eric on his journey all while both searching for their own version of tenderness.While it's no secret that this is not a perfect film, there is something to be said about this adaptation of Robert Cormier's novel.
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.
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.
But if you're a Cormier fan looking for a film that captures his ethos of hope through pain, his bleak "there is no light, so learn from the tunnel" themes are all present, which is why his books stand out and why this challenging and masterly crafted film will likely fail at the box office (as it has in Australia, where I'm from) and remain a minor masterpiece.(If there are any Dern fans there - she has 2 scenes, a cameo really, though she's quite good.
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).
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.
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..
Sophie Traub's Lori is an awkward teenager who has been obsessed with Eric since the murders and desperately pursues interaction between them at all costs.It's a shame that potential character studies of these three individuals never fully materializes on screen nor does it mesh with the attempts at suspense and action.
Crowe's performance seems flat and perfunctory with no real character arc other than a slow chase of Eric and Lori and a subplot of a hospital-ridden wife that goes nowhere.
I went out and rented it right away, curious to see what Russell Crowe had done as I like to watch him work.Hats off to Jon Foster and Sophie Traub for telegraphing internal dialogue well enough to keep me nearly interested.
it is as a result unfortunate that i laughed harder through this film that 'the brothers bloom'...The conceit is a retardation of most bonnie a Clyde rip offs, with a serial killer, and an obsessed feline catering to the every whim of said murderer.Russel Crowe plays the semi retired cop (how many obsessed semi retired cops are there in films!!!) following a man who is sure to re-commit.While the narrative has some really thought provoking themes; a man who can only feel tenderness by releasing life from victims, a girl vacant as the apathetic family she fled who craves tenderness, and a road trip of discovery it is only in the hands of a hack such as john polsen that such a film could simultaneously feel both so derivative and boring.The cinematography is appalling, underlit and unmoving; but not in terms of changeling where this stalling aesthetic added to the emotional weight of the proceedings...
This film felt like a favour to the director from 'sum of us' days, and as a result lacks direction, presence, logic and cohesion.The moment of a laugh out loud comes when said femme fatale, who can't swim, stands up on a boat with the murderer, and starts rocking the boat (yes literally and metaphorically...
Unfortunately I can't review more than the first hour of the movie, because I ended up falling asleep at 6pm, which never happens to me.If you're expecting something like Body of Lies, State of Play or even Proof of Life, you'll be very disappointed with this one...
Crowe makes his scenes bearable but the young actress playing the infatuated teenage girl is toe-curling awful and she is not helped by dialogue and nonsensical ramblings that one would expect to see in a film made by a twelve year old.
So we have the troubled young killer Eric and the fastidious detective cleaning up his house, his comatose wife & old unsolved cases, all dogging him.Enter Lorelei, the opening character, She is a sexually abused, more in a peeping tom way, waif who lives with her loser mother and her straight looking but twisted boyfriend, She is obsessed with Eric based on a chance encounter before he was arrested but is unknown by Eric.
Maybe the reason I'm scoring this 5/10 isn't because it was bad, but rather it did not live up to expectations.The beginning was good, as it introduced the characters well and left me wanting to see how the story developed.
It tells the story of Eric Poole (Jon Foster) a deranged killer who murdered his family and was sent to prison.
Russell Crowe and Laura Dern signed up to the project, perhaps as the novel has received some quite favourable attention, but they don't bring much to it.The film lacks any dramatic oomph, partly because the cop is a really nice guy who looks at Eric as a young man with a mental illness; and there's no animus back from Eric, simply because he lacks most ordinary human feelings.
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.
The main portion of the film is a road trip, pairing the main character - a teen recently released from a juvenile correctional facility after murdering his parents - with a young female admirer who alternates between annoying and creepy.
The underlying theme song might have been the Beatle's classic, "Strawberry Fields," with its haunting theme, "Nothing is real..." Russell Crowe, a much better actor than most people are willing to give him credit for gives a superb but fleeting performance, coming in and out of the action created by the two focal characters, the pathological Eric, played by handsome, boy-next-door type Jon Foster and the suicidal nymphet Lori, played the young Canadian Sophie, whose ambiguous nubile sexuality adds an amazing texture to the story.
TENDERNESS is a brilliantly done movie, and I would certainly watch it again.But be warned, it is not the kind of film for which you would pop a bowl of popcorn and sit down to enjoy with the family, expecting to laugh, smile, and be entertained.Rather it is a film that chooses to march very seriously and solemnly down a twisted dark path while holding a candle of insight, allowing the viewer to experience a very real and empathetic tour of the tragedies unrelenting abuse, ignored cries for help, and the severely poor state of mental health that can grow, slowly and steadily, over time.You must pay attention to what you are watching in this film.
But by the time you are done, you can sit back and look at the picture, and realize what is actually is.One point of brilliance is that the plot is so perfectly paced and developed, that you cannot possible fully understand the full impact of the story until final scene of the movie.
It is not that kind of movie.It is a very serious film, that makes you a fly on the wall, witnessing a very serious tragedy unfolding right before your very eyes, and it leaves you feeling empathetic and helpless because in retrospect you could probably think of 100 ways to intervene, but by the time to fully understood what was happening, it was too late, and you were powerless to change anything you just witnessed..
Eric Komenko (Jon Foster) killed his parents at 15 and is getting released from juvenile detention at 18 to stay with his aunt Teresa (Laura Dern).
The only thing that saved this film was the acting of the Jon Foster and Sophie Traub, and a minor appearance by Laura Dern.
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.
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.
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.
Both unknown leads act exceptionally well and both Hollywood stars are well behind them, Crowe's grimly silent cop and Dern's anxious, grieving Aunt.The motivations of both characters are also not opaque, or never seen: we know Eric has killed before - the cop knows of one and suspects him of a separate unsolved case we see him leafing thru in a diner.Lori has been abused before ("my mom has always kinda been a perv magnet") - she has to strip for her store manager, and lock her bathroom door against her mother's boyfriend's eyes.
Eric went to prison for these crimes, never connecting the young girl who became obsessed with him, scrapbooking his case ardently in an attempt to escape her mundane, working-class life.He is released to live with his dead mother's sister: he prays, is apparently reformed, tho' very restrained without being overtly cold and sociopathic: supposedly going to start a new life, try college.
Cristofuoro has a silent, bedridden wife in a hospital: terminally ill and on oxygen, we see him watching videos of them before her illness, while he massages and washes her.Eric is set up before release in juvenile detention by Cristofuoro and the authorities: they slip in a girl from the female section of the centre, whom he sees; later someone slips him a note purporting to be from her, and once released he phones Maria to arrange meeting at Funland, an entertainment park upstate from Buffalo NY.Lori (She says her full name is Lorelei - a German creature who lures men to their deaths in rivers) runs away from home: stands beside the media outside his Aunts': when he leaves to meet Maria, he's shocked to find her sleeping in his car: Eric thinks Lori's a plant by Cristofuoro or the media; she knows who he is and can't believe he doesn't remember her.
Their progress thru' spring upstate New York toward Maria, followed by Cristofuoro, is an anxious road movie.Eric is tormented by memories, tries to ditch Lori repeatedly: never warms to her, once nearly kills her.
Eric returns to prison for her murder, tho' Cristofuoro knows him innocent of this, but guilty of killing the other girls.It's worth remembering that tho' Eric is clearly a serial killer, Lori is certainly seriously disturbed (partly as a result of what she saw him do), and in the beginning, at meeting, and at the end, the only thing that can make Lori happy is for him to kill her: not sex, not love, not friendship, not leave or rescue, not even rape: the _only_ way she feels he can love her is to kill her.
OK lets make it quick,the script restlessly tried to be one with great dialogs,but they were rather disturbingly irrelevant to the events that has occurred in the story.the movie's ending ,everything it has shown us pretty much cried out loud the fact that nothing changes,but russel crowe's punch line for the final sentence of the movie is "maybe today something changes".he didn't kill her but that doesn't mean he's changed!!!!
I kept asking myself, maybe the murderer guy is going to end up being responsible for the reason Crowe's wife is a vegetable, but nope, the movie never reveals anything like that to the audience.
Just as he is about to be released he gets a note from a pretty girl who catches his eye, and he later calls her and they agree to meet at an amusement park in upstate NY.The other key character is teenager Sophie Traub as Lori, a 16-year-old girl who ends up in the back of Eric's car as he is driving upstate.
The reviews weren't good, but the reviewers seemed to have other reasons than mine for not liking it.Have any of you ever heard of an American teen-ager killing his parents and two girls, and getting out of Juvenile Detention in 3 years.
Makes no sense.Then, there is a crazy 15/16 year old girl who was already a stalker to him that lies to her mother & her current boyfriend saying she is spending the weekend at a friend's house to hook up with the released murderer.Now, Russell's characters wife in in the hospital WE NEVER LEARN WHY SHE IS THERE.
And while the boy goes in the search of a beautiful girl he saw once, a depressive girl named Lori appears in his car and joins him in his trip.And here we go, the basic premise of the movie, we don't know for sure if Eric will kill again, we don't know why Lori is so obsessed with him and we also don't know why the cop wants him to be in prison.
The good thing about this film is that it will answer all your questions and you will be rewarded at the end, but the very slow nature of the history make it difficult to watch, but helps you to take time to understand the motives of everyone involved.Tenderness its a really simple movie about very complex characters.
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.
But the film is worth viewing for its compelling script and the three excellent performances by Russell Crowe, Jon Foster, and Sophie Traub.Crowe plays a police detective engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with a young man who is being released from prison for the brutal slaying of his parents.
Eric Poole (Jon Foster), a young man who killed his parents when he was a teen is released from prison when he turns 18 (and after court evidence that proves that hard anti-depressives were the main cause for his acts).
The third character in the story is a teenage girl (Sophie Traub) obsessed by this killer and she joins him on this trip where things can go really bad when his instincts seems to rise again.
Prejudicial to the film was having Russell Crowe acting and behaving like a walking zombie appearing in a heavy clichéd role as the detective who not only wants to track down the young killer but also has to deal with a sick wife in the hospital.
All she wants is to leave home for a chance meeting with Eric, whom she knows is staying at his aunt's.The third character in this tale is Lt. Christofuoro, a retired detective who was involved in Eric's parent's murder.