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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 4, 2022)
PAGE A15, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 04, 2022 Clooney’s Tender Bar adequate at best BY T.J REID For the Keizertimes I like to think that I have lived a fairly interesting life so far, but I am under no illusions that anyone would ever care to read a book or watch a movie about it. It’s a good life and it’s my own, but it just doesn’t have a narra- tive that would compel or interest any- one with the possible exception of my closest friends and family. Review Follow THE LEADER Biographies need to have a little something special to them if they are going to entertain, and it cer- tainly doesn’t hurt if the subject is a larger-than-life fi gure that everyone knows. The Tender Bar is a fairly well made (if not mind-blowing) fi lm about the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning jour- nalist J.R. Moehringer that is mildly interesting in the fi rst half, a slog in the second, and ultimately has very little of interest to say. Directed by George Clooney, The Tender Bar (a pretentious and awk- ward name that I absolutely despise) is, in a word, adequate. The cinematog- raphy is fi ne (with the exception of a goofy-looking zoom-in here or there), the acting is fi ne (Ben Affl eck as Uncle Charlie is the clear standout), and the script is, you guessed it, fi ne. The fi rst third of the fi lm that focuses on a younger Moehringer (played by Daniel Ranieri) with occasional jumps @keizertimes kept going and going. I was stunned when I learned that the entire fi lm clocked in at only 104 minutes, as it felt like at least 180. Could this have been improved by tighter editing and more succinct scriptwriting? Perhaps. But honestly I think the true culprit was the fact that Moehringer’s story isn’t that unique. Countless protagonists in literature have daddy issues. Everyone doubts themselves and everyone gets rejected by people they love and jobs they want. And instead of giving the audi- ence the “oh, this guy is just like me, how relatable,” feeling The Tender Bar instead comes off as someone tell- ing a story that they think is fascinat- ing and unique when it just isn’t. When it comes to being a piece of entertain- ment, The Tender Bar doesn’t really justify its existence, I am sad to say. The Tender Bar (ugh… that name…) is now available on Amazon Prime. Your Neighbor Your Realtor in Keizer news Facebook Twitter Instagram to Tye Sheridan’s version of the char- acter a few years later is interesting enough with its themes of fatherhood and family, giving the proceedings a nostalgic feel despite the common- place tropes of the story. But when the narrative moves completely over to Sheridan the pac- ing slows to a nasty crawl that is not alleviated by anything we as an audi- ence have not seen thousands of times before. Sheridan’s version of Moehringer goes to college, meets a girl, falls in love, experiences heart- break, doubt, all that fun stuff . He gets a job but doesn’t get the job he wanted, fi nally confronts his father, blah blah blah. Not helping matters is the fact that Affl eck, the best part of the fi lm, is mostly thrust into the background at this point and that Sheridan shows the emotional range of a particularly stoic cardboard box. And somehow, The Tender Bar just Start a Conversation with Keizer’s own Go-To-REALTOR for Buying & Selling 3975 River Rd N, Suite 3, Keizer call or text 503-983-4086 email bobshack1@gmail.com Bob Shackelford is a licensed real estate broker in Oregon. CURRENT PRESIDENT K EIZER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Bob SHACKELFORD Broker