The Seduction of Joe Tynan

An ill-advised and mostly dull drama, The Seduction of Joe Tynan follows Alan Alda’s title character, an up-and-coming Senator, as his professional and personal morals are tested over the course of a fairly eventful few months. There’s ultimately little within The Seduction of Joe Tynan worth getting excited about, which is a shame, certainly, given that Alda and his various costars knock it out of the park in terms of their respective performances. (Meryl Streep is quite good as an ambitious researcher, while Rip Torn, Barbara Harris, and Melvyn Douglas bring able support and color to the proceedings.) Scripter Alda delivers a slow-moving and distressingly routine narrative that’s been suffused with sequences and set-pieces of a decidedly uninvolving nature, and there’s ultimately never a point at which one is able to work up an ounce of interest in or enthusiasm for the protagonist’s exploits. And although the movie admittedly does end with a relatively effective climax, The Seduction of Joe Tynan has long-since confirmed its place as a hopelessly forgettable drama with few positive attributes.

*1/2 out of ****