A masseuse (Diane Lane) trying to clean up her life moves herself and her teenage son in with a wealthy client (Donald Sutherland), but when the son gets involved with the client’s dysfunctional family it causes problems.

CRITIQUE

Fierce People is the kind of movie that one wants to like; the cast (which also includes Anton Yelchin, Elizabeth Perkins, Chris Evans and Kristen Stewart) is very solid, and the premise, which compares living with the wealthy in New Jersey to living with a South American tribe, seems like it has dark comic potential.  Unfortunately, this is just rather a mess; the tale doesn’t go much of anywhere for its first half, before taking a dark second-twist that suddenly at the end turns it from a drama into a generic thriller, and there isn’t enough here for the cast to really work with.

The set-up here has masseuse Liz (Lane) battling alcohol and drug problems; when her 15-year-old son Finn (Yelchin) gets busted buying her some cocaine, she realizes that it is time to clean up her life, and takes a job working for wealthy Osborne (Donald Sutherland) on his New Jersey estate.  Finn is disappointed because he wanted to spend the summer with his father, an anthropologist in South America; instead, Finn starts analyzing the wealthy world he finds himself in on the same terms.

But this is a conceit that grows tiresome quickly, mostly because it’s so heavy-handed; not only is there a random mental-disabled man roaming around doing primitive pictures in chalk, but there’s a Jeep painted in zebra stripes and also scenes involving body paint and imaginary warriors.  And the wealthy world here really isn’t very interesting; the basic theme here seems to be that rich people are messed up, but this doesn’t provide much story.  Finn just sort of wanders through the first half of the tale without any goals; things happen, several teenage girls want to have sex with him, there’s a rather boring hot-air balloon race, and little that happens is really very involving. 

Screenwriter Dirk Wittenborn (working from his book) seems to realize this, and abruptly has an incident in which Finn is attacked and raped in the woods.  But this just makes the tale sour and depressing, while there is no real mystery about who his assailant was, and the big climactic showdown in the woods feels like it belongs in a different movie.  Ultimately it’s unclear what the point of this all is, and the trip just isn’t very entertaining or eye-opening; the cast here all deserve better.

THE VIDEO

Fierce People is presented in 16x9 widescreen.  Visuals are often a bit muddy.

THE AUDIO

Fierce People is presented in English 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital Audio.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear, though there is no real demands on it.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There is a Commentary by director Griffin Dunne, though he should have brought in someone else to do it with him, because he sounds a little tired here; he even talks about the “mother-daughter” relationship at one point, when he means “mother-son”, and the commentary just gets duller as it goes on.

There are three Deleted Scenes, totaling just under 4 minutes, though nothing that is particularly memorable.

There is a 14-minute making-of Featurette, “Breaking Down the Tribe”, which mainly features the cast members, screenwriter and director talking about the movie over clips from the movie and some behind-the-scenes footage.

FINAL THOUGHT

Despite the cast, there just isn’t nearly enough here that works.