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The Tender Bar

by George Wolf

Look past the tabloid fodder and you’ll see that onscreen, Ben Affleck is having a fine second act. Last year’s impressive turn in The Way Back showed him more than comfortable in his older skin, and his standout support in The Last Duel is generating some Oscar buzz for this year’s best supporting actor race.

This focus on substance over leading man style is a smart one, but while Affleck digs into his pivotal role in The Tender Bar, the film itself struggles to find anything truly relevant to say.

Based on J.R. Moehringer best-selling memoir, it’s an account of his journey from a poor, dysfunctional household to a Yale education and a career in writing. Guided by voiceover narration from adult JR (Ron Livingston), we’re introduced to little JR (Daniel Ranieri) when he and his mother (Lily Rabe) are moving back into the Manhasset, New York home of Grandpa (Christopher Lloyd), Grandma (Sondra James) and Uncle Charlie (Affleck).

JR’s violent, alcoholic father (Max Martini) is a radio deejay who’s rarely around, so 11 year-old JR looks to Uncle Charlie as a role model, often soaking up life lessons found at “The Dickens,” the Long Island bar where Charlie works. Young adult JR (Tye Sheridan) continues the barstool education until it’s time for the Ivy League, new friends, and a hard-to-really-get new girlfriend (Briana Middleton).

Director George Clooney and screenwriter William Monahan craft a respectful and well-meaning adaptation, but it’s sadly lacking any hint of why they found the source material so moving. From Charlie’s advice to JR’s awakenings, the messages are broadly drawn, well worn and self-satisfied, too generic for even the Oscar-winning Monahan (The Departed) to polish into inspirational shape.

And where is the eye for vibrant period detail that helped bring Clooney that well-deserved directing nomination for Good Night and Good Luck? Here, soundtrack choices and costume design blur the stated timeline, while the young actor playing JR at 11 looks closer to 8 and shockingly unlike Sheridan. Even the “golden voice” we’re told that JR’s deejay dad possesses never materializes when he finally speaks.

A film such as this needs authenticity to resonate, but this true story never feels like one, and the chance for us to really connect with JR is derailed at multiple turns. While Affleck adds another fine showing to his current winning streak, there’s not much else in The Tender Bar to convince you the book was worth a big screen adaptation at all.

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Nobody

by Hope Madden

On the surface, this film feels really familiar.

Nobody was written by Derek Kolstad, which should surprise, well, nobody. Kolstad wrote 2014’s John Wick. I assume you’ve seen it: a humble widower is moved to reignite his highly trained assassin’s nature when his dog is in jeopardy.

Kolstad’s next project? Acolyte. What’s that about, I wonder? According to imdb: When his wife is kidnapped, a simple man reveals himself to be anything but as he assembles his old crew to rescue her.

Nobody is exactly every other film Kolstad has ever written, and its execution has all the earmarks of director Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry): precise action and a weird song and dance number.

The one and only thing that separates Nobody from dozens and dozens of expertly crafted, wildly interchangeable “underestimated badass” films is the utter brilliance of its casting.

And by that, I mean exclusively the perfection of Bob Odenkirk in this role.

Every beat is the same. The ideal placement of Sixties Soul classics, the meticulously timed car sequences, the underlying daddy issues, and most of all the struggle between the hero’s natural brutality against the unnatural pull of domesticity—all of it second-by-second constructed as you would expect.

Constructed well. Air tight. Shoot out choreography is like ballet—better than anything in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It’s all interchangeable with every other really well made carbon copy.

But god damn, Bob Odenkirk? I’m not saying he makes this a comedy, but his timing is comic perfection. His placement at the center of the film not only sells the “average guy” masquerade better than Liam Neeson ever could, but it makes his inner struggle and his displays of violence actually stand out.

Regardless of the fact that you’ve seen this exact movie a dozen times, you just don’t expect it. It’s great!

He’s great.

Plus Christopher Lloyd?! Yes, please. And Michael Ironside, who is forever welcome in any role. Connie Nielsen, on the other hand, is—characteristic of the genre—grossly wasted as the wife who’d probably love him more if he showed his badass nature more often.

Aleksey Serebryakov also sells the mad Russiah villain pretty well. There are certain scenes—one climactic across-the-table, in particular—where neither lead conveys the gravity of the situation. I’m not asking for Walken/Hopper in True Romance, but this moment is pivotal and needed to feel like it.

Still, Bob F. Odenkirk. Right on.

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I Am Not a Serial Killer

by Hope Madden

To find a serial killer, you have to get inside his head. This is not a new concept in horror movies, thrillers, police procedurals. No, this is a tired conceit.

But Irish filmmaker Billy O’Brien (Isolation) finds a new vision for it with his wry, understated indie I Am Not a Serial Killer.

John (Max Records) is an outsider in a small Minnesota town. He works in his mom’s morgue, writes all his school papers on serial killers, and generally creeps out the whole of his high school. His preoccupations have landed him a therapist, the bird enthusiast Dr. Neblin (Karl Geary).

Turns out, John is a budding sociopath – that’s his official diagnosis. A good kid who lacks empathy, may not feel love, and obsesses over death and murder, he follows self-imposed rules and rituals to try to make himself normal and ensure the safety of those around him.

But when townsfolk start turning up in gory pieces, John turns his keen insights on the case.

Though O’Brien’s film may be too quiet an effort to command attention, his coming-of-age approach and indie sensibilities help him turn this outlandish and contrived effort into something touching, humorous and rewarding.

Records, who melted me as young Max in Spike Jonze’s 2009 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are, serves up an extraordinarily confident, restrained performance. One scene, in particular – when he turns the tables on a bully at the school dance – is outstanding.

His onscreen chemistry with the nice old man across the street – Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd – generates thrills enough to offset the movie’s slow pace.

For his part, Lloyd is in turns tender, heartbreaking and terrifying.

The story cleverly inverts the age-old “catch a killer” cliché and toys with your expectations as it does. Robbie Ryan’s grainy cinematography gives the film a throwback looks that fits the image of a depressed Midwest town lost in time.

Bursts of driest humor keep the film engaging, while Records’s performance engenders the kind of empathy from the audience that the character himself could never muster.

It’s an effective twist on the serial killer formula, certainly, not to mention a coming-of-age tale that accepts its unpopular protagonist for who he is rather than how he could be made over to be happier in a way that makes us comfortable.

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