Sponsored by
Russell Crowe looks for tenderness
Low budget thriller from cinema's new Robin Hood.
WITH Russell Crowe's new blockbuster movie, Robin Hood, due for cinema release on May 14, it would be easy to ignore his latest DVD outing.
Compared to director Ridley Scott's all-action, big-budget shenanigans in Sherwood Forest, indie-thriller TENDERNESS (15: Lionsgate) is an incredibly downbeat affair.
Based on award-winning author Robert Cormier's novel, it was actually made in 2007, but has only just been dusted down and released for home viewing.
A weary-looking Crowe stars as Detective Cristofuoro, a semi-retired cop in New York whose "hobby" is Eric Komenko (Jon Foster), a young man who murdered his parents and has just been released early from prison.
But Cristofuoro is convinced it's only a matter of time before Eric kills again, so he sets off to track him down. Throwing a spanner in the works is teenager Lori (Sophie Traub), who has become obsessed with the unstable killer.
Although Crowe and Foster are fine, the film's strongest performance is from newcomer Traub, whose character is in turn alluring, irritating and pathetic.
Tenderness is a low-key movie that's often disturbing and at its best when showing the inner conflicts of people in pain.
> THE DESCENT: PART 2 ((18: Pathe) picks up exactly where the chilling original left off, yet anyone who saw the first film will find familiarity with the claustrophobic atmosphere and sudden scares diminishes the overall nightmare impact.
This bigger-looking but less frightening companion piece sees traumatised Sarah Carter (Shauna Macdonald) emerging from the Appalachian mountain caves where she confronted her darkest dreads.
But she's forced back into the subterranean depths by a suspicious police force that wants her help in locating her five missing girlfriends.
Unlike Sarah, who gradually regains her memory and realises how futile the mission is, the rescue party has no idea what horrors lie in store as it enters the domain of a new breed of vicious "crawlers".
The plot is heavily contrived, but the movie boasts some well-staged underwater, cliff-hanging and rock-falling action sequences.
> Most films about football are obsessed with hooligans, so THE SHOUTING MEN (15: Kaleidoscope) has a certain novelty value.
OK, it does feature a thug, a disabled, wheelchair-using 'Mr Angry', but he's just one of a varied bunch of Gillingham fans who head north when their lowly club is drawn away to the mighty Newcastle United in an FA Cup tie.
Don't you just know it, little goes right for the supporters and at one point they even wind up in the wrong Newcastle.
The characters, two of whom are played by former EastEnder Craig Fairbrass and veteran actor Dudley Sutton, are stereotypes and there's too much lazy reliance on toilet humour.
But having said that, The Shouting Men has its heart in the right place and there's a lot to like about this watchable little comedy drama.
> In brief, here are a few straight-to-disc titles you're likely to find on the lower shelves in your local DVD store.
SERIOUS MOONLIGHT (15: Universal): Meg Ryan plays a high-powered attorney whose husband of 13 years (Timothy Hutton) plans to leave her and move to Paris with his twentysomething girlfriend (Kristin Bell).
She decides to tape him to the toilet in their country house, refusing to let him go until he learns to love her again.
CRY OF THE OWL (15: Metrodome): Robert (Paddy Considine) leaves the big city for the peace and quiet of a small town where he secretly watches a woman he doesn't know (Julia Stiles) through her kitchen window.
When she catches him in the act, she doesn't call the police but invites him into her home for a passionate relationship with dire consequences when her boyfriend finds out.
DOLAN'S CADILLAC (15: Momentum): A dark revenge thriller about a schoolteacher (Wes Bentley) whose wife witnesses an execution in the Nevada desert carried out by notorious crimelord Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater).
When the wife is then murdered and the accused Dolan walks free, the teacher devises an ingenious plan to bring about the gangster's downfall.
> TOP TEN: 1 In The Electric Mist; 2 2012; 3 Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; 4 Law Abiding Citizen; 5 The Box; 6 Twilight Saga: New Moon; 7 Men Who Stare At Goats; 8 Paranormal Activity; 9 Harry Brown; 10 The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus. Chart supplied by Blockbuster.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -0 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: -4 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
