Marin director Michael Anderson’s film of a young Iraq war veteran becoming the manager of a residential hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin is well written (by Ned Miller) and directed, but none of it would work without a good performance from its lead. As Ben, a single father, estranged son and wounded loner, Kurt Yaeger is just about perfect. Ben has an anger-management problem, and yet he is able to find in a ragtag group of tenants – alcoholics, junkies, transvestites – a kinship of broken dreams, and compassion. The lively supporting cast includes Stephan Smith Collins as a transvestite, Tina Huang as a love interest with secrets and Richard Conti as the evil landlord.
G. Allen Johnson [SFGate.com]
TENDERLOIN Live or Start Dying [website]
Filed under: What's Going On? | Tagged: Ned Miller, Richard Conti, Stephan Smith Collins, TENDERLOIN Live or Start Dying, Tina Huang
