If you’re even slightly intrigued about the late J.D. Salinger, Shane Salerno‘s Salinger, which I saw this evening, will hold your interest and then some. I didn’t know zip about his World War II experiences (i.e., D-Day to Dachau). Or his early 1940s romance with Oona O’Neil. Or what his Cornish, New Hampshire home looked like. It supplies dozens of assertions and anecdotes that added to my understanding of the legendary author. And it feels good knowing a bit more. But the tone of this two-hour film is tawdry and tabloidy. It feels reaching and intemperate, like some Sci-Fi Channel doc about the Sasquatch or Loch Ness monster. It lacks the courage and the character to be modest and plain. It’s over-cranked and certainly over-scored. It sells rather than tells. Salinger himself would hate it — it embodies everything about coarse, phony America that he tried to stay away from by living in rural New Hampshire. If Salerno had toned it down and attempted a more thoughtful or literary air…but he hasn’t. Salinger is what it is. I was interested and attentive, but I was exhaling loudly and rolling my eyes almost from the get-go.