The Vicious Kind

source: The Vicious Kind

Rarely do I give films a 10/10, but this is strongly deserving. This movie has the most perfectly executed dark comedy I've ever seen. It has a truly hilarious, yet so dark and serious screen play. Perfect script-writing, perfect. This film had me laughing so hard and in a cheerful mood one minute, and then in a serious, dark mood the next. By no means is this a happy film, but the word choice and line delivery of Adam Scott just had me laughing, but I'll get to him later. Honestly, there is not one unnecessary line, not one unneeded stare, not one superfluous action. While watching, I was waiting for a slip-up, maybe a stupid scene of dialog, or excessive profanity, or some flaw in the script but no, not one profanity is unneeded, not one sex scene is too much. Every single part of this film develops the characters and the plot as perfectly as you could imagine. Sure, you could make the case that this movie didn't need profanity or sex scenes, but without them, the characters wouldn't be the way the writer and director wanted to depict them. Adam Scott, man he is good. I am so taken aback by how little critical and public attention this film got because Adam Scott is just so good in this film. You actually start to believe that he's like that in real life. He had me laughing out loud, yet feeling bad about it. He had me so emotionally attached yet disgusted by him. His line delivery is hilarious yet so cold. The way he brings his character to life is ridiculously believable. Brittany Snow was almost as good. She did amazing in her role and made it so true and identifiable to the audience. This film is deeper than just entertainment. It is about the effects that not only love has on us, but also the desire, the yearning, and more importantly, the NEED for love, whether it be from a father, a son, a brother, a girlfriend, or a lover. This is a film about understanding when to let go of love, and when to accept new love, or re-kindle familial love. This is a film about knowing how to forgive, and how to be forgiven. This is a strong, strong film about how the way we deal with the past can change our future, and conversely, it is about how the future shouldn't be dictated by the past. Amazing, I know. This is a powerhouse of a film, and is now one of my top 5 favorites ever. Do yourself a favor and watch it. An amazing, amazing movie.

Peter brings his girlfriend, Emma, for Thanksgiving at his dad's house. Caleb his brother is trying to recover from his last relationship. He thinks Emma is going to break Peter's heart because the way he feels now, all women are whores. He tries to warn Peter about Emma. Although dad and Caleb start with Peter's best interest in mind, both manage to betray him. If you can relate to an anti-hero character, then you may have fun watching this movie. The acting was good, believable. Soundtrack was OK. Many flaws and weaknesses can be present and most of us would still feel sympathy for the main character, but betrayal is not one of those.

This felt like a breeze of fresh air, and it ambushes the viewer in a very good way. Taking place in a cold small town, I tended to put it on a strange "cold-far-away-god forgotten postmodern scenery" shelf, strange because this shelf contains Lost in translation, The girl in the café, Gigantic, Twilight and other seemingly unrelated movies. But The Vicious Kind is by far the most alive and vigorous movie out of these, in which the characters seem to be living very sincerely and intense, even against their own will. The humor is also genial, and the tenderness/passion that the love (or simply sex) story inspires is also an unexpected surprise. Loved this movie. The way one would appreciate a hot and tasty meal in a cold winter's day, after a mouthful of cold cucumber soup that the more pretend to be classy movies often serve. and i imagine the main character ended up to be Sully Sullivan from Nobody's Fool, the 1994 movie, played by Paul Newman.

I agree with the prior poster on this movie's pros: good acting - all characters did well. But, as is the nature of these stories, you are looking at weak, selfish people, who cannot seem to control their emotions, even if at the cost of ruining another person's life. Such is the story of Caleb. As the elder brother. I couldn't help but notice the contradiction in his misogynistic attitudes towards women at the beginning, only to behave contrary wise towards the younger brother's girlfriend. She, as "all other women, mother included", are "whores". Yet the girl, knowing full well the outcome, could not resist Caleb's advances, because she was not getting good enough sex from the younger Peter. Caleb had already labeled her a * more than once; so was he right? Such infatuation with her could hardly be healthy. So now the question: what exactly was gained, other than ruining the lives of two people who, markedly, would not be able to handle the resulting blow from such selfishness? I'm still thinking of the lessons this movie attempts to prove, and I must say it delivered with brutal honesty. Worth viewing by mature people.

A 'drama' which leaves the viewer with some unanswered questions .. like: Why is a slutty 'Psych Major' trying to analyze a dysfunctional family in the bleak mid-winter by having sex with the brothers and encouraging the father at the dinner table, while at the same time advertising the new look in underwear and haircuts while simultaneously inhaling copious amounts of cigarette smoke to the obvious delight of the camera operators and sound engineers recording her every puff and ermmm sigh? And: Is Peter taking sleeping pills? And: Couldn't he see his father's and brother's feet sticking out from under the curtain? And who supplied all those cigarettes anyway? John Wayne's estate maybe? 'The next time I see you on my property I will shoot you.' 'You had better improve your aim.' 'I tried to reach out to you.' 'I have been living less than two miles away from you for the last eight years, dad.' Bring back usherettes with the ice-creams...anything to relieve the unremitting boredom of American angst.

During a star-free night at an already emptied drive-in theatre, this film made my heart burn. This very last screening of a winter's night did not attract an audience but one sole viewer. And if you have an understanding of passion and pain you might not even be comforted by a crowd. You might prefer solitude while watching cinematic characters fight and love. There are no exceptional techniques, there is no dazzling style. Visually the film holds back. As a result one character can step forward. Only this person seems to inhabit the film's universe and this could be considered a drop of bitterness. However, this one person is able to entertain without the necessity of applause. He embodies the passionate being who bites back after being wounded. It is easy to fall for the broken one as long as you believe that there is a chance to heal. He is explosive. His hatred is an exceptional passion in disguise. In a universe of flat personalities he stands out. He cares too much, he loves too much and he cannot stop being passionate about every single soul. As a result, his viciousness is not inspiring hate but love from us and from them. We and everyone else are attracted because he is so full of what everyone else seems to lack. The film presents us a world where people are not grown-up emotionally. Passions are rare and feared. In this universe people do not easily possess passionate love. Only the protagonist seems to own it but he also seems unable to handle it. Still, he is able to inspire another person, maybe even the audience to love him back. We learn that pain and love do not end, but jump like a virus from person to person. Love stories repeat themselves. Passion is portrayed as a very dangerous form of love, one which easily feeds into a vicious cycle of being hurt and of hurting in return. But whether or not you can handle the pain and the guilt, for the passionate ones it seems inevitable to fall for it at least once in their lives.

I was really thrown by the description that this film is a dark "comedy." There is absolutely nothing funny about it. And upon reading the reviews, I think there is a real split between men and women. I don't see how a woman would enjoy this and give it a good rating. The main character - Caleb - is so misogynistic it is disgusting. And after calling all beings with vaginas skanks who will f*** you over and then to have the only female character *SPOILER* become exactly that was not good. There was nothing redeeming about Caleb. Obsessed or not, a person with any decency wouldn't *SPOILER* screw his brother's girlfriend. And yep, I get the whole contradiction that he condemned his dad for his cheating and then did something just as deplorable. But, making this woman the catalyst for Donald and Caleb to reunite, is pretty despicable. I was waiting for Caleb to become a good person. That didn't happen. I was waiting for the girlfriend to outright reject Caleb or at least tell her boyfriend what an ass for a brother he has and that didn't happen either. I gave the movie 2 stars because I have definitely seen worse movies, but I can't deny Adam Scott acted his butt off. He was totally believable. This is a dude who does a lot of comedy. He really showed his versatility here.

The premise of this movie seemed interesting enough for me to give it a try. The story revolves around Caleb, a misogynist construction worker in a small town. His younger brother Peter just got his first "serious" girlfriend, which he is bringing for Thanksgiving to their dad's. Adam Scott was an unknown to me but is absolutely amazing in the role of Caleb. He conveys all the suffering in this character on the inside, with all the aggressiveness on the outside. Caleb is fueled by hatred and negativity but the writing and direction of Lee Toland Krieger, and the performance by Scott suggest that if this hatred is explicitly directed at others, it is implicitly self-hatred. Caleb is estranged from his father for reasons we learn about through the movie and his relationship with his naive brother is uneasy at best. The gap separating them is the very different outlook they have on life and love. Peter is more of an idealist while Caleb is on the slippery slope of fatalism. Neither of them seems to be able to see the complete picture and their father Donald Sinclaire might have something to do with this. Donald is the prototypical dad figure. Doesn't talk much and prefers to address superficialities when he does. A scene that particularly highlight this is a dinner scene between him, Peter and his girlfriend Emma. While Donald can't stop complimenting Emma on her looks, Peter at some point shifts to her academic background, which seems to put the father outside his comfort zone. Veteran actor J.K. Simmons puts another great performance as the father, a great casting choice. The last piece of the puzzle is the outsider who crashes in this family at such a critical point. Emma is Peter's new girlfriend and while it would have been easy to make this character little more than a plot device, she has several interesting layers to her. What we know from the start about her is that she is smart, polite, beautiful and herself comes from a less than perfect family (there is talk of alcoholism). More importantly perhaps, she dumped someone for Peter, which further fuels Caleb's belief that "all women are whores" as he likes to say. I had no idea who Brittany Snow was but I was blown away by her performance as Emma. Looking at her credit list afterwards, I would never have expected that. The story mixes all the things you'd expect from an indie. Humor (mostly dark) is there, the main characters are quirky and the peripheral characters even more so. The camera-work, editing and music all ooze of this "indie feel". If anything, this hurts this heartfelt film more than it helps. Lee Toland Krieger obviously wrote a great and heartfelt story but there,s this sense that he has watched a lot of film festival darlings and well... it's just not terribly original in presentation and at times, feels formulaic. The only other negative aspect would be the character of Peter. Naive and idealistic does not mean a character should be bland. Likewise, actor Alex Frost is unremarkable in this role. All in all, this is a fine film and with Caleb Sinclaire, we have been given a misogynist character that almost rivals Roger Swanson (from the cult classic Roger Dodger). I just hope that in the future, Lee Toland Krieger will find his own voice and style when making movies as opposed to shooting it "like other indies".

The Vicious Kind (2009) This sneaks up on you. At first you can't believe how awful the older brother is, mean and acerbic, but he's strangely perceptive and quick, too. Played by Adam Scott, he's really a wonder to watch, and he makes the movie. The other three main characters end up being strong but supporting roles, making for a great small ensemble performance. And they have a curious, not spectacular, but nuanced plot. It's filled with little clichés we are sure we've seen before, but it all has an odd arc to it, and a cutting, believable edge, and it takes on a life of its own. This is only director Lee Toland Krieger's second film, and it shows a kind of deft handling of young people's problems that is precocious, and promising. Adam Scott has been knocking about for fifteen years, and has crossed paths with some of the best (he has been in some quality t.v. like "Six Feet Under," and was a secondary character in "The Aviator" among many others). The father in "The Vicious Kind," a pivotal character in explaining the motives behind the two sons, is that strong character actor, J.K. Simmons, who has trouble shedding his previous roles (including a more comic version of the same thing in "Juno"). A whole greater than the sum of its parts. Captivating. Not to be underestimated.