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".

Caleb Sinclaire (Adam Scott) is an angry bitter drunken insomniac. His brother Peter (Alex Frost) has a new girlfriend Emma Gainsborough (Brittany Snow). They pick her up from college. Caleb warns him against all women, but he can't seem to get his mind off of her. Peter and Emma are staying with their father Donald (J.K. Simmons),and Caleb has a contentious relationship with their father.

This is definitely not the normal character that Adam Scott usually plays and it's far away from his nice guy persona. Caleb is unhinged and self destructive. It's a good performance from him as well as Brittany Snow. Writer/director Lee Toland Krieger has created a difficult dysfunctional family dynamics. The story has just a little bit of humor. I wish it had a bit more as well as more drama. It's an interesting little indie with some interesting performances.

For those who enjoy quintessential indie films about dysfunctional families, you might want to give 'The Vicious Kind' a nice peek. The film's protagonist is Caleb, who has become a full-blown misogynist after being dumped by another girlfriend. Caleb is one step away from being a stalker and maybe a couple more steps away from becoming a serial killer. When we first meet him, he's picking his brother Peter up at school and driving him to see their father who he hasn't talked to in eight years. He's not afraid to express to his brother, his deeply held conviction that all women are "whores". In a flashback, we see Caleb leaving some photos he took of his girlfriend while having sex together, under her door and driving away.

On the way to the family home, Caleb and Peter pick up Peter's new girlfriend, Emma. True to form, Caleb acts boorishly towards Emma who's puzzled why he's so hostile. Caleb leaves Peter and Emma at the entrance to the driveway since he doesn't want to run into his father. Father Donald is almost as boorish as Caleb; he makes inappropriate comments to Emma laced with sexual innuendo at the dinner table. Peter passively rebukes the father who doesn't seem to take any hints.

Caleb soon becomes fixated on Emma in a love-hate sort of way. In their first encounter alone at a supermarket, Caleb chokes Emma and threatens to kill her if she does anything to 'hurt' his brother. Outside, Caleb collects himself and apologizes to Emma, who answers by slugging him in the face. Some time later, Caleb confuses Emma by showing a more sensitive side (they share a cigarette together on the porch at night while Peter and their father are inside sleeping).

But Caleb can't suppress his fixation on Emma. He shows up with a camera hiding in the woods and the father mistakes him for a raccoon and almost shoots him with a rifle. Soon we learn that it's not only the fact that Caleb has been rejected by women that accounts for his extreme emotional problems. It seems that after their mother had an affair with another man years ago, she left Donald and he then prevented her from seeing the children (the father's story is that the mother chose not to see the kids). Caleb knows about his father's dishonesty but never told Peter who was 12 years old at the time. Caleb was the only family member to see the mother when she was dying of cancer and that's the reason why he and his father hadn't talked to one another for eight years.

Caleb continues the pattern of showing his contempt for Emma and then apologizing. This goes on until the night Emma accidentally locks herself out of the family home and asks Caleb to help get back in. He knows a way of jimmying the window on the side of the house; as they enter through the window, they end up tripping and Caleb falls on top of Emma. Here is the moment when you think Emma is going to give in to Caleb but instead she tells him she never wants to see him again.

Her intense dislike for Caleb melts when Peter turns out to be hopeless in bed as he is an inexperienced virgin. Caleb can't resist coming over to the house one more time and this time he hits pay dirt. After masturbating continuously, Emma is desperate for sex and finally cannot deny she's been attracted to Caleb all along. The bad boy triumphs and they have some very good sex together. Donald catches Caleb outside the room where Emma is collecting herself and threatens to tell Peter that Caleb has been having sex with his girlfriend. Caleb turns the tables on his father and threatens to tell Peter that he kept them from their mother when they young. An uneasy truce unfolds.

The denouement holds some redemption for Caleb who reconciles with his father. Donald is also able to 'open up' as he tells Peter that he made mistakes in the past but essentially loves him. The damage however is done for Peter and Emma's relationship; on the way back to school, Peter whispers in Emma's ear that he loves her. Emma can only stare straight ahead with a tiny tear dripping down her face—she knows that she can never go for a wimpy guy like Peter, especially after she's had such a good time with his bad boy brother.

'The Vicious Kind' has one major defect: the undeveloped and essentially bland portrait of brother Peter. Where the rest of the ensemble, Caleb, Emma and Donald, are all engaging characters, we find out little about Peter. Why for example is Emma even attracted to him in the first place? And why he is so passive in the face of the boorish behaviors of his brother and father? He's essentially a punching bag who's continually manipulated and humiliated by his brother. Why doesn't he take a stand at any point? His passivity is never explained and he seems only to exist as a uninvolved counterweight to Caleb's aggression.

Brittany Fox is brilliant as the confused Emma who perfectly illustrates that women are attracted to 'bad boys' and not wimps. Adam Scott effectively conveys a young man teetering on the brink of a complete nervous breakdown. He and J.K. Simmons ably convey the dual nature of both father and son: both are damaged goods but manage to redeem themselves through love at the film's end. Vittorio Braham as J.T., Caleb's construction worker friend, does a fine job of depicting a young man with obvious learning disabilities but one who is also a loyal and supportive companion.

I doubt that the 'The Vicious Kind' will have much commercial success in mainstream movie theaters due to its dark, misogynistic theme, but as a nice little indie ensemble piece, it rightly fits the bill.