This movie is highly underrated. It isn't mainstream and it isn't predictable, which makes it unique and interesting.The acting done in this film is raw and believable. Anton Yelchin, Diane Lane, Chris Evans, and Kristen Stewart all do well portraying their characters.The film is about turning bad things into good fortune and has an interesting sociological plot. It's quirky and at times a bit unbelievable, but that's why it's great to have good actors. Not all movies can be the same, and this movie makes good use of that.Enjoy the film for what it is, don't expect too much and you'll get much more than you'd imagine.Rated 10 Stars due to the lack of lenient criticism.

A brilliant and sensitive movie with interwoven plot lines. As a general warning, the movie turns quite dark about half way through. As sudden as it is, this is a change that I found fitting to the themes of the movie, particularly the comparison of the Ishkanani to the filthy rich, and (as is said by Finn at the end) how each person makes up the tribe, and how the whole tribe is reflected in each person.Anton Yelchin (Finn Earl) is spectacular in this movie. He is probably best known as Chekov from Star Trek or Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation, but he's been in a whole plethora of movies you've probably never heard of (Alpha Dog, which is another brilliant performance on Yelchin's part, House of D, Hearts in Atlantis, to name a few...) The point is that this kid really takes this movie and makes it his own. Other excellent performances from Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland are what takes this movie up a notch, from great to excellent.

Me and my friend read the summery and watched the trailer and were very interested and excited to go rent this movie. BAD IDEA. We thought a movie with actors that influential would have been a sure hit, but our expectations fell extremely short. First of all, the trailer and summery are misleading to the point of lies. The movie started out slow for the first 1 1/2 hours(reminder, its about two hours long) and when it finally started to gain momentum, It sucked. Plus, the plots were very hard to follow. It confused us because it kept skipping from one story to another in random order. The characters where not very realistic when it came to reality. Sure the mum and son could be actual people in reality, but everyone else seemed to be one extreme or the other. If your a person who likes sick, twisted, unusual movies, then go for it. But we advise not wasting two hours of you life you cant get back. Unfortunitly, no one told us that...

In Fierce People, a sixteen-year-old boy (Anton Yelchin) is forced to forgo a summer with his dad observing tribes in South America (the fierce people) for a summer with his drug- and booze-dependent mom (Diane Lane) in upstate New York when she's hired as the full-time masseuse to a super-duper-rich man (Donald Sutherland). But the movie veers sharply from charming comedy to turgid melodrama and never truly finds its way. In spite of some spirited performances (particularly by Lane), Griffin Dunne's film doesn't really have an identity, and without a solid identity, it can be a tough movie to follow and enjoy.Liz (Lane) and Finn (Yelchin) are a dysfunctional family living in New York. She's a cokehead and drunk who puts out for some of her masseuse clients (but she does have a degree in massage therapy). He's a good kid who sometimes enables her, because she's a great mom during those rare moments when she's not hammered. At any rate, fate intervenes and keeps Finn from seeing his dad, a renowned anthropologist, in the Southern Hemisphere; instead, he and his mom are schlepped to the Hamptons so she can give Ogden Osbourne (Sutherland) his daily rubdowns, and here Finn decides to observe a different kind of tribe, that of the filthy rich. Of course, he can't just observe, and he slowly ingratiates himself into Osbourne's fiefdom, befriending his grandson Bryce (Chris Evans, who looks like a young Stephen Baldwin) and falling in love with his granddaughter (Kristen Stewart, once the tyke from Panic Room). Liz and Finn are given a house and a car, and naturally the rumors fly about Liz's true relationship with Osbourne.Most of the acting ranges from sweet (Yelchin) to a bit hammy (Sutherland, who even gets to sing), but it's Lane who truly stands out with a bravura, top-notch performance. Her Liz is intensely and simultaneously vulnerable and strong; she lives not for herself but for the love of her son, which has ebbed quite substantially in recent years. Liz has to do battle with her teen son, her own ambitions and self-confidence, and the suspicious eyes of Osbourne's family, particularly his daughter (Elizabeth Perkins), a bit of a lush in her own right. Lane is still exquisitely beautiful, and she carries herself with a fragile grace; she almost seems attainable to a normal person, in other words, not like a Star.The movie covers some pretty strong subjects, from sexual awakenings, gun violence, major drug use (including acid), and murder, but often it feels like just a melting pot of weirdness, as if the protagonists were merely flitting from tragedy to tragedy; Finn is sort of a combination between Dean Moriarity and Homer Bailey. But unlike the wallflower Bailey, as played by Tobey Maguire, Yelchin's Finn is good and sincere, but he's proactive. He desperately wants his mom to get better, but he also wants things for himself, like a warm female. He's a smartass, but he's not some grinning idiot who's happy to take the kindness of others without offering anything in return.Oh, and then there's the film's eventual villain, a person you'll spot a mile away, a good thirty minutes before his identity is revealed. The movie will ask, "Who could have done this?" and you'll reply, "That guy, over there. Duh." It's that obvious. At first, I thought that perhaps it was a little too obvious, that the movie would pull a switcheroo at the last minute. You know, a red herring to throw me off the scent. But, nope. Fraid not. It was that person all along. And that kind of annoyed me, because up until then I was sure that the movie was going to be tightly plotted, with some genuine twists tossed in. Sadly, no. And the ending is a little too clean for my tastes; I like my endings jagged, like a used sponge.