Fierce PeopleMovie Reviews

Gifts + Promos

Fandango Gift Card

Give the gift of movies with Fandango Bucks Gift Certificates! Design your own gift card, or choose from our collection.

Avengers Gift Cards

Superhero fans! Don’t miss out on these Limited Edition Avengers gift cards!

Need Help?
So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 54 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 70
    Village Voice |

    Whereas most of the injustices suffered by "Nanny's" nanny are of the skin-deep variety, the hopelessly reductive Fierce People ups the ante. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Ronnie Scheib

    Whenever Sutherland comes on scene, any inadequacies in the film's depiction of the well-to-do become irrelevant. Read full review

  • 67
    The Onion A.V. Club |

    Fierce People's first hour is dominated by brittle social satire, but in its third act, the film takes a jarring turn toward tremblingly sincere melodrama it can't pull off. Read full review

  • 60
    The New York Times | Stephen Holden

    When F. Scott Fitzgerald remarked that the rich "are different from you and me," he might have been thinking of someone like the moody billionaire from Fierce People. Read full review

  • 50
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    The platitudes in this gratuitously sentimental movie are taken a lot more seriously than the people. Read full review

  • 50
    New York Daily News | Jack Mathews

    What might have read as a dense allegory comparing the rituals of the super-rich with the tribal customs of the violent Ishkanani tribe in the Amazon becomes a tedious, over-ripe soap opera on screen. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Ann Hornaday

    When the tone goes from daffy to dour in the course of a harrowing plot point, the story becomes more forced than fierce. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times |

    Dunne and Wittenborn, who adapted his book, work too hard at stressing just how ruthless the unspoken standards of the stinking rich can be, leading to a story-pivoting act of brutality toward Finn that careens the movie into a tonal wilderness that it never recovers from. Read full review

  • 50
    Chicago Tribune |

    The idea that rich people are an alien tribe is just one of many that get lost in Wittenborn's distracted script. Instead of exploring the concept, he throws out random incidents until he hits one that sends the film into a dark, grotesque spiral. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle |

    Plays like a movie that some teenage boy cooked up in his chemistry lab. There are lots of potent things floating around in it - sexual initiation, drugs, fantasy-land wealth, brute violence, primitive rituals, Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland - but the mix just sits there without producing any notable reactions. Read full review

View more reviews for Fierce People on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Smart-but-grim coming-of-age tale best for adults.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that even though this drama is about a teenager who comes to grips with who he is and what he stands for, it's a very adult movie. The messages it sends about being authentic and courageous are admirable, but they're doled out harshly, and there's enough nudity, casual sex, swearing, and underage drinking and drug use to make it iffy even for older teens. There are moments of tenderness -- between Finn and his girlfriend, he and his mother -- that somewhat mitigate the tough parts. But the lesson, when it comes, is one bitter pill.
  • Families can talk about the prevalence of rich, dysfunctional families in independent films. What draws filmmakers to this world? And, for that matter, what draws Finn to the Osborne family members in the first place? Why are they so appealing to him when they appear deplorable to viewers? Is Liz a good mother? Is her addiction romanticized? Does that happen often in movies? Also, what about the young Osbornes? Are affluent teens really like that, or is the movie making too broad a statement about them?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Characters, including some who are underage, drink and use drugs, indulge in casual sex, and exhibit a huge sense of entitlement. But those aren't the worst crimes; there's rape and even murder.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: A young hunter puts out traps in the forest -- but he doesn't just catch animals, he immobilizes humans, too. Finn becomes the victim of a horrible physical act of rage and violence (he's raped by an assailant whose identity he doesn't find out until the end) and seeks revenge. Guns are shot randomly, and a character points one to his head once. There's much discussion about -- and footage of -- how brutal the Ishkanani can be.
  • sex false5 Sex: Lots of sex, both between adults (there's one explicit scene in which a couple passionately makes love on the foyer floor, with the front door wide open) and among teens. Two teenagers strip naked, and one paints the other (breasts are bared). A boy seeks solace in the arms of another teen, who's pregnant (more bare breasts). Ogden often makes verbal and physical passes at Liz and shows a picture of a naked woman to Liz's son. Plenty of non-sexual footage of indigenous people fully naked.
  • language false5 Language: As blue as it gets, with frequent usage of everything from "damn" to "s--t" to "f--k."
  • consumerism false3 Consumerism: Mercedes Benz car logo; a certain awareness of what money can get (a mansion, a car, daily housekeeping, fine food and drink, power).
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: A mother is an addict, and her child gets caught by the cops while buying drugs for her. Plenty of underage drinking and drug use (mainly marijuana). A mother walks around her estate with a soda can filled with liquor. Grown-ups and teens smoke cigarettes (accurate for the time period).
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Looking for more reviews? Movies.com Critics Say:

Dave White

2.0

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

… a completely tone-shifting, boom-lowering sexual assault … Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

Read more movie reviews at Movies.com

Fierce People Movie Ratings + Reviews

Fans say

Go 37 fan reviews

Critics say

So-so See all critic reviews

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook