DVD available at Amazon.com
Director:
Danny Green
Cast:
Dylan McDermott……….Harry Lesser
Snoop Dogg……….Willie Spearmint
Rose Byrne……….Irene Bell
Seymour Cassel……….Levenspiel
Millennium Films presents The Tenants. Written by David Diamond. Based upon the novel by Bernard Malamud. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated R (for pervasive language, some violence, sexual content, and drug use). Available on DVD: March 7, 2006.
The movie:
Slipping under the radar earlier this year, The Tenants is a film where two strung out writers toil away in a decrepit tenement apartment building. One is an accomplished author with two books to his credit. The monetary advances and deferred payments he got for them are running dry and he is trying to finish his third novel. Too bad it takes him three years to write a book. The other apartment dweller is a hermit, a promising poet who is a first-timer when it comes to typing a novel. The clothes he wears – chiefly, his torn overalls and faded green sweater – make him out to be a criminal. Though, neither one should be considered a couth individual.
Dylan McDermott is Harry Lesser, the last legal tenant of the dilapidated structure. His landlord Levenspiel (Seymour Cassel) wants to buy him out, offering as much as a thousand dollars to see Harry just go away. Being the creature of habit that he is, Harry will not vacate the apartment until he finishes his so-called “masterpiece.”
One day Harry hears typing. Surely it isn’t him since his fingers are nowhere near the typewriter. Curious, he leaves his desk and room to find another tenant who has taken up residence in a vacant apartment, just a few rooms down from his. Willie Spearmint is his name and he’s played by the rapper-sometimes-actor Snoop Dogg. A product of the streets, Willie has vision in his storytelling but lacks precision. The two men slowly develop something resembling friendship, even though they bicker back and forth about story content issues.
Willie, who prefers to be called Bill by his sounding board, wants to create a novel that will redefine the black experience. He makes the unwise decision of letting his friend read his latest draft. Number four to be exact. Creative criticism can open a whole can of worms and here it’s no different. Harry likes the biography at the beginning but feels the stories need structure. Come to find out the biography was fiction and the narratives were real-life accounts by Willie Spearmint.
What begins as an intriguing two-character drama veers off course and becomes this contrived, meddling fiasco. The film begins to unravel, much like the shoestrings in an old shoe, when Harry meets Willie’s girlfriend Irene (Wicker Park‘s Rose Byrne). Both are lethargic from having partied with Willie and some of his friends. She inquires about his book. “It’s about love,” he replies. “What do you know about love?” she quickly responds. Irene has a point. He lives in a place where things can’t get much better. But, when they get to chatting in a diner days later, Irene sans Willie gets to tell Harry things he may have not known about his neighbor.
Now a love triangle develops with Irene in between the two writers. Who will she choose? Harry loves her company but won’t free himself from the tenement until his book is finished. Willie sees her as a companion in the bedroom. If a relationship exists he doesn’t express it with roses or by whispering sweet nothings into her ear.
All things considered, Danny Green’s Tenants is much like Willie Spearmint’s fourth draft; it’s good but it could be better. It’s flawed, blurred, and the form isn’t efficient for the story. Perhaps novelist Bernard Malamud never envisioned his work would make it to the silver screen. In some scenes the racial qualms between the two writers are powerful. Especially the expletive-laced diatribe Willie gives Harry after he lets him read his book. “You can’t turn the black experience into literature just by writing it down,” Harry believes. “Black fiction ain’t white. It can’t be. We feel different, we write different, our chemistry is different,” Willie answers.
McDermott and Dogg give strong performances as the two leads. McDermott is reserved and complacent in his environment. Dogg is a jittery outsider who, with a typewriter, hopes to see his thoughts spill out on the page. Rose Byrne as Irene is the wild card; she is the person who brings warmth to the tale, and also changes the film’s outlook.
Score: 4/10
THE DVD:
THE VIDEO
(Presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
The transfer is also like Willie Spearmint’s novel. It’s lacking in a few areas. While some of the interior scenes, like Harry meeting Willie and his friends at a party, are clear; some of the outside on-the-move scenes are rough, with dirt and spotty images.
Score: 6/10
THE AUDIO
(English 5.1 Dolby Digital)
With a 5.1 soundtrack it is hard to screw up the sound of a DVD. That is, of course, something was wrong in the mixing process. Thankfully, nothing like that happened with The Tenants. Now you can enjoy Snoop Dogg and all his cursing without any interference.
Score: 7/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Missing several pages.
The only extras are trailers for Dirty, Chasing Ghosts, The Gospel, End Game, The Passenger, and Breakfast on Pluto.
Score: 1/10
| InsidePulse’s Ratings for The Tenants | |
