Fierce People

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film is worthwhile primarily for the fun, breezy first hour. After that, it's a case of watching to find out how things turn out.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Director Griffin Dunne's adaptation of Dirk Wittenborn's fiercely personal novel ambles pleasantly through coming-of-age movie territory, then takes a jarring Agatha Christie detour.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

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

Village Voice Scott Foundas

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

The Onion (A.V. Club) Staff (Not credited)

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.

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Not even the always reliable Diane Lane can save this one.

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.

Los Angeles Times Robert Abele

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.

Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Fierce People is no ordinary dud. This seedy soap opera is the most outlandish, campy romp through the mud since "Showgirls."

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.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

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

Chicago Reader Joshua Katzman

Never recovers from a jarring and improbable act of ritualized violence that occurs halfway through the film.

San Francisco Chronicle Steve Winn

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.