A pair of writers inhabiting an abandoned New York tenement building become locked in an antagonistic battle of wills in director Danny Green's adaptation of novelist Bernard Malamud's studied exploration of faltering race relations. The time is the early '70s, and Jewish writer Harry Lesser (Dylan McDermott) is finally nearing completion on the novel that has taken him almost a decade to write. The last tenant in a crumbling inner-city apartment building, Harry soon discovers that he is no
longer alone in the building when an illegal squatter named Willie (Snoop Dogg) claims a room down the hall and begins writing his own novel. When Harry attempts to offer writing advice to his new neighbor, his criticism of Willie's "immature" writing style ignites a heated confrontation between the pair that is quickly compounded by the growing relationship between Harry and Willie's white girlfriend Irene (Rose Byrne). As the situation quickly spins out of control and Willie sets fire to the only existing copy of Harry's treasured manuscript, the deep-rooted racial animosity explodes into rage and the two writers become locked in a life-or-death struggle to survive. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Alternately tedious and bombastic, the film never achieves a consistent tone, and the characters and situations, while seemingly played on a realistic level, are neither remotely credible nor satisfyingly surreal.
Snoop Dogg and Bernard Malamud don't often pop up in the same sentence, but they make an effective combination in a quiet little indie called The Tenants.
The message about race relations in America conveyed by this choppy and psychologically cauterized screen adaptation of Bernard Malamud's 1971 novel is dire.
The stripped-down production looks more like a play than a movie, but all the actors do a decent job with a script which turns increasingly preposterous at every turn.
The stripped-down production looks more like a play than a movie, but all the actors do a decent job with a script which turns increasingly preposterous at every turn.
Danny Green's adaptation of Bernard Malamud's earnest 1971 novel about art and the clash between black and white feels about as anachronistic as the New York City rents cited in the film.
Middle-class Jewish liberal Lesser befriends semi-homeless African-American Spearmint, and from the moment their tenuous relationship begins, you know there's going to be trouble.
For a hip-hop icon defined by his own cartoonish gangsta-pimp persona, Snoop Dogg nonetheless turns out to be the most genuine presence in The Tenants.
In "The Tenants", it is 1972 when Harry Lesser(Dylan McDermott) is writing his third novel in a tenement in Brooklyn where he is the sole remaining tenant, hoping to regain the form of his successful first novel, when he hears another typewriter down the hall. There, he discovers Willie Spearmint(Snoop Dogg) writing a
book of his own. The two become friends and Willie asks Harry to read his manuscript and tell him what he thinks. "The Tenants" nails the solitary obsessiveness of writers perfectly but in other areas the movie is less than a success, especially in missing a prime opportunity to explore race relations. Willie is by far the more interesting character, with experiences that are only hinted at, whereas Lesser is the more polished writer. In short, what could have made for an intriguing movie falls dramatically flat, and a bland Dylan McDermott does not help.
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