Tenure

This film was a delight to watch, but did get slow at parts. At parts you did feel a little bored, but something would come up to get your attention back for a bit. It had light humor, but it was a nice chuckle and relaxing. The cast in the film was pretty good. Luke Wilson was decent, but not his best role. Now they needed an actor to play a off the wall weird teacher who is obsessed with bigfoot. So they picked David Koechner, who at first I thought wouldn't fit, but he proved me wrong. Gretchen Mol played the main female role and she did a good job. The film is all about a teacher trying to get tenure. That in itself sounds like a boring piece of work, but luckily they did put some humor in the film. That is basically what David Koechner was for. Some scenes were a bit out of the ordinary, but it really fit with the film. This independent film didn't rely on anything crazy like special effects. Just nice dialog and a decent cast. This would be one of those nice Sunday afternoon movies to watch.

Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) is an English professor at a small, New England college. Although his students love and learn from him, his possible tenure is in doubt. This is because of the "publish or perish" unwritten law that is prevalent in American academia. So far, Charlie is having trouble getting his essays into an admired journal. To complicate things, his father is in an extended care facility nearby, due to early dementia, but, Charlie is not visiting him often enough. This has angered his sister and upset his dad, who was also a prof and likes to converse with his son. A colleague, Jay (David Koechner), an unorthodox science instructor in search of a bigfoot-type local monster, is also up for tenure. Now, the dean lures a Yale-educated English academic, Elaine Grasso (Gretchen Mol) to the department, further complicating Charlie's quest for tenure. Jay suggests that the two males mildly "sabotage" Elaine's adjustment to the school, by arranging to make her look bad in front of others, especially the dean. This involves everything from implicating her in a "cola" theft in the staff room to questioning her school loyalty at the college basketball game, where Elaine inadvertently sat on the opposing team's side. But, wait, does Charlie really want to drive Elaine away, since she's so smart and pretty and he's single? For those who love comedy-romance, here is another sweet view. Wilson's dry, understated humor is always welcome while Mol is a lovely romantic interest. The rest of the cast, including Koechner, are wonderfully supportive. The beautiful east coast college campus will surely bring sighs of admiration and the costumes, script, photography, and steady direction are quite fine as well. Get Tenure, therefore, all you usual fan suspects.

This is a melo-dramatic comedy, 2009 flick starring Luke Wilson as our main protagonist and also featuring Gretchen Mol, David Koechner, Sasha Alexander and Bob Gunton. It is written and directed by Mike Million. Rated R if you're interested by ratings or if you want to supervise what your kids are listening. I've heard the F word a few times and other sexual references words, so that is where you'll get your R rating. No images to support the words. It's all speaking "R".

This is not the flagship of Luke Wilson's filmography. It is an independent movie produced by Blowtorch Entertainment, that you may not heard of, unless you're into the underground movie scene. Like I said, it's not a blockbuster movie, not action-packed and it wasn't a movie that you saw any publicity about it, at least not that I know of. But, somehow, when I looked at cover and read the synopsis, I was, I could say a little bit intrigued. So I sat on the couch and I was ready to be… Well I wasn't ready for anything. I didn't come with lots of expectations for this movie. I thought to myself, well let's just watch this and see what comes out of it. So anyway, there you go! Charlie Thurber is in his mid-thirty and an English teacher at Grey's College. Charlie's struggling to get his tenureship, which to us is the thing that he'd like to get so bad. To obtain this, he's get to be elect by his fellow teacher partners and his essays need to be publish in a journal or anything that releases a publication. This is the main plot of the film.

Here comes Charlie's best friend, Dr. Jay Hadley(David Koechner), who's an anthropologist and die-hard believer of the existence of the Big Foot. Jay is a 42 years old that I've never seem to grow up. The best example I could tell for this is that Jay tried to get his tenureship and got denied so to replicate at one person who didn't get him his vote he "T-P'ed" that particular man's tree. You see the picture.

Charlie's got to put on his A-game when Elaine Grasso(Gretchen Mol), a new teacher from Yale adds herself up in the mix. On top of this, he has to deal with his father(Bob Gunton), who's in a nursing home but doesn't feel like being in it.

The movie's main theme is about trying to get what you want and the ways you choose to get it. It's an easy-listening movie, it does not revolutionize the movie "genre", but in my opinion this kind of film doesn't need to change that much anyway.

On a scale of 10, I'd give Tenure a 6/10 rating. It made me laugh at times, not out loud laughs but okay laughs. If you like Luke Wilson and/or Gretchen Mol, then I suggest you this flick.

"Tenure" is a comedy about college professors. It has its fair share of problems, mainly that it has a really weak (in some cases false) description of college life for professors. And its hard to call this a comedy.

The jokes are very sophomoric, you may laugh a little bit, but these jokes are for the lowest common denominator. I found it a very odd mix, since generally movies about academic professors are supposed to be more intelligent. Do not mistake this movie as intelligent. David Koechner (who I am generally not a big fan of) is in the main comedic role, he crosses the line from professor to student, and his jokes cross the line from decent to unacceptable.

That aside, the rest of the movie is a pretty good exploration of a smart, but insecure, 30-something guy. Luke Wilson is his usual, likable self, and I looked forward to the resolution for his character.

"Tenture" is not the smart, funny academic film that I was expecting (and that I think it was supposed to be), but I found a bit of myself in Luke Wilson's character and I was smiling at the end. If you ignore the promise of high comedy, this film can be enjoyed.

Mike Million's 'Tenure' gives the impression that it's a university campus comedy. I found the premise refreshing and appealing. The problem is that the comedy parts are just not that funny and Million tries too much to make it quirky funny to the point that it backfires as he goes way over the top and tumbles down.

I found the Jay Hadley character very annoying and not to be a very believable professor. The Rosemarie DeWitt track also felt out-of-place. The movie should have just stayed focused on the key character Charlie Thurber. Many people of his age would be able to relate to what he's going through. I liked the Million avoids clichés in places. For example, the Teacher's pet sequence was well done.

On the technical side, the score is pretty good and the camera captures the simplicity and beauty of the location. The woods and countryside are nice to look at. The pacing is very slow, especially at the beginning. Luke Wilson is terrific. His restrained performance as Charlie makes the character all the more real. And if this film is worth watching then it's mostly because of him. David Koechner does his best with an ill-written character. Gretchen Mol is cute and likable. Sasha Alexander is wasted.

Overall, it's not as bad as many reviewers have made it out to be but it could have easily been a lot better.