Just what I expected

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The first half of Fierce People is a mildly amusing coming of age story. The second half is a huge mess. I don't think I've ever seen another movie that just spins apart like this.The film starts out with a teenaged boy named Finn (Anton Yelchin) and his drug addicted masseuse of a mother (Diane Lane). He gets busted getting her drugs, so she decides they're going to spend summer away from the city at the estate of one of her old clients (Donald Sutherland) who happens to be the 7th richest man in the United States. Stuck for the next few months on the 10 square miles of the rich man's estate, Finn decides to make an anthropological study of the "tribe" of the rich man's family and hangers-on. What follows is about an hour of the same movie you've seen before about a young man in a strange place learning lessons about life.That first half of the movie is relatively entertaining. The only real problems are that Finn is a fairly unimpressive and not-terribly-likable character, which is actually pretty realistic for a teenaged boy, and that the story abruptly switches away from Finn and focuses on his mother for a short period. Normally, anything that keeps the beautiful Diane Lane on screen isn't a bad thing, but Finn is such an uninspiring main character that the story really needs to do as much with him as it can.All in all, though, that first hour is pleasant and even charming, if a bit ridiculous when the rich man's granddaughter keeps throwing herself at Finn like a nymphomaniac. It will hold your attention and even make you interested in seeing how the story's going to develop…right up until Finn gets beaten and raped in a grassy field.I'll admit, I didn't see that coming at all. And, perhaps, that could have been the point where a mediocre coming-of-age movie took off and became something quite special. However, that ain't what happened. When Finn gets raped, it becomes a completely different sort of story but the filmmakers don't seem to know how to tell it. They don't embrace the darker, more dramatic tale in front of them and they haphazardly try to reinsert the gentler tone of the first hour. Eventually, the movie loses all sense of itself and drowns in Gothic melodrama and a climactic scene that looks like it was ripped off from one of those teen suspense thrillers, like The Skulls. It's almost as though they brought in a different director and writer for that scene.The guy who wrote this movie also wrote the book upon which it is based, and it's possible that this story worked as a novel. When you've got hundreds of pages and hundreds of thousands of words to work with, you can get beneath the surface of the story with meditations and asides and digressions that take the reader's attention away from a surface story which might be too choppy or roiled up. But in a movie, all you have is the surface and if that surface story doesn't work, there's no way to hide it.Fierce People REALLY doesn't work. A movie that shifts so harshly in the middle may never be able to work, but it's like these filmmakers don't even try. So instead of an interesting failure…Fierce People just fails.

I really enjoyed Fierce People. I discovered the film by accident, searching through my On-Demand movie lists trying to find something interesting to watch. The film has an impressive cast and it quickly grabs your attention. The film's characters are smart and articulate and the story doesn't stick to the usual Hollywood rules.The main protagonist is Finn, a precocious, but underprivileged 15 year old who spends his summer with the Osbourne family. Donald Sutherland plays the patriarch, Ogden C. Osborne, the seventh richest man in America. Diane Lane plays Finn's mother, a friend of Ogden who is also a habitual cocaine user and a slut. The Osbournes own a large estate and seems to live by their own rules. At first they seem charming and sophisticated but the film implies that the super-rich are different. They are used to getting their own way. The film is enjoyable mainly because it has crisp intelligent dialog, superb acting and a story which takes unexpected turns. It is also an R rated movie, so it's not entirely wholesome. Anton Yelchin is believable and sympathetic in the demanding role of Finn. Sutherland and Diane Lane have never been better. Chris Evans is impressive as Osbourne's duplicitous and devious grandson. Kristen Stewart is good as the pretty grand daughter. High quality movie.

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...

this is an adaptation of a Dirk Wittenborn book, which I did not read. young Finn Earl lives with his Mom Liz (Diane Lane) in a cramped lower East Side New York Apartment. he dreams of joining his Anthropologist father studying a fierce tribe in South America. Liz has boyfriends and does coke. when he is caught scoring coke for her, one of her customers (Liz is a legitimate masseuse) a rich Mr. Osborne bails her out in return for being his full time personal masseuse in his huge estate in New Jersey. They are driven there in a limo with her strung out lying in the back seat with her dress hitched way up and panties showing. (this and a few low-cut dress scenes is the only exploitation of Ms. Lane. some may be disappointed but I'm sorry she had to do all that stuff in "Unfaithful" to make the A-List. That lady has more talent in her little finger than Streep, Roberts, and Sally Field do in their entire BODIES and its time she was given her due.) when they arrive Finn makes friends with Osbornes grandson Bryce, and has a coming of age with his new girlfriend, granddaughter Maya. Liz meanwhile joins AA and dates an AA doctor. She miraculously cleans up instantly. Finn however does a lot of drugs along with sex with his new friends. Bryce seems like an OK guy but gets jealous when Osborne takes Finn on a hot air balloon race instead of him, and this leads to tragedy.the genius of the story, (and movie) is that they cut from the violent acts of the Fierce filthy rich Blysdale tribe to the Yanomano warriors. It's a little implausible though that when Liz finds out what happens to her son she merely demands action from Osborne and does not either contact the authorities or settle it Thelma and Louise style. there are elements of a Gothic Romance with a revelation by the village idiot. Also they do almost no plot or character development prior to the move to Blysdale. Liz, for instance, like Lane's Pearl Kantrowitz in "Walk on the Moon" had an unwanted pregnancy with Finn at 18 and felt trapped. This is in the book but not the movie. Still, these are minor shortcomings. The movie will be in full release 12/31/05 over a year after the original release date, and I just couldn't wait.There were lots of Red Carpet moments in the theater I saw the movie at, with almost the whole cast...except Diane Lane!! $#%#Q$ Director Dunne said she was off filming a movie. I know she didn't promise to be there, but I came from way out of town and it would have been such a thrill to see her in person. The movie is a definite Best Picture contender, as for acting?? Sutherland was quite good, and so was the boy who played Finn. Lane was magnificent as always, but I only recall one or two emotional scenes, when she catches Finn with drugs "lets get f****d up together mother and son" and with Osborne "your twisted grandson...". She would fare better with a supporting actress nod but it wont work that way. unless they give it to her for a "body of work."