Military TV, Television - Military Times

Adrian Grenier takes a shot at knowing his dad

Estranged fathers and deadbeat dads get a pre-Father’s Day kick in the posterior Sunday when HBO airs actor Adrian Grenier’s documentary “Shot in the Dark.” (10:30 ET/PT).

Grenier, 30, is best known for his portrayal of carefree Hollywood golden boy Vinnie Chase on HBO’s comedy “Entourage,” which airs its third-season finale just before Dark’s TV premiere. (“Entourage’s” fourth season opens June 17.)

Viewers will see a complex personal side to the pre-stardom Grenier, who directed Dark in 1999. “It’s definitely a 180 for people who only know me from “Entourage,” he says. “It’s a little scary knowing it’s getting an audience we never imagined.”

Grenier grew up largely not knowing John Dunbar, his biological father. At 22, he began a complex quest to re-establish contact with Dunbar after 18 years and learn why he had been abandoned.

Grenier’s saga — videotaped over two weeks and edited over seven years — explores the significance and disjointedness of father-son relationships. Through man-on-the-street interviews, Grenier encounters sons who never knew their fathers, others who were badly treated, and a father with no interest in knowing his children.

The on-camera interactions with the soft-spoken Dunbar are alternately painful and healing; they are “Dark’s” most illuminating scenes. Dunbar is guilt-ridden and ambivalent. And after Grenier returns to New York, there’s another nine-month gap.

Still, Dunbar isn’t the boogeyman one might assume. Grenier’s mother, Karesse, who also appears, acknowledges she had other lovers at the time she conceived her son and was ambivalent toward Dunbar.

Greiner, whose closeness to his mom is repeatedly underscored in Dark, says his relationship with both parents is “easier and getting better and better.”

HBO acquired the film about two years ago. “We don’t do a lot of celebrity-driven stuff. But we were really quite surprised how genuine and raw it was,” HBO documentary chief Sara Bernstein says.