Movie Review : Violence the Name of Game in Thriller ‘Tie’

Sickeningly violent and relentlessly contrived, “The Tie That Binds,” which opened Friday, may well be the most nauseating movie released by a major studio this year.

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That’s saying a lot, but keep in mind that this one centers on a 6-year-old child witnessing the most unspeakable acts of brutality for a good portion of its running time. No wonder Disney’s Hollywood Pictures held off screening it long enough to prevent it from being reviewed on opening day.

Sleekly produced but blatantly obvious, it opens with a numbing double whammy. First, rampaging hippie-esque psychopaths John and Leann Netherwood (Keith Carradine, Daryl Hannah) rob and terrorize an older couple in their home but are interrupted by the arrival of cops, who wind up with the crazed couple’s little daughter Janie (Julia Devin)--and with the Netherwoods getting away. Second, at the police station the cops coldly snatch Janie’s doll, provoking a way-over-the-top struggle on the child’s part to get it back, involving some formidable stunt work.

When first-time director Wesley Strick (whose writing credits include “Wolf” and the “Cape Fear” remake) then cuts to Dana and Russell Clifton (Moira Kelly, Vincent Spano) driving and discussing adopting a child, writer Michael Auerbach telegraphs his entire plot. You know that the Cliftons are going to adopt Janie, and that after a terrific amount of violence and bloodshed, foreshadowed by that opening sequence, the Netherwoods will track down the Cliftons for a suitably savage standoff. The anticipation of all this does not generate Hitchcockian suspense but merely dread at its prospect.

What you don’t anticipate, however, is just how full of holes the plot will be or how truly gory its unraveling or how stupid it will make the Cliftons look, despite the best efforts of Kelly and Spano, talented, personable and intelligent actors that they are.

The Cliftons opt for a public rather than private adoption because Russell, a contractor, is staving off bankruptcy. Questions about the couple’s solvency aside, what right does any agency have in putting up for adoption the child of dangerous suspects who are on the loose--and not giving the prospective parents any inkling whatsoever that they and the child could be in very real danger?

If “The Tie That Binds” weren’t such a numskull out-and-out exploitation picture it conceivably could have raised the issue of adoptive parents’ right to know as much as possible about the child they intend to make their own, and also the special predicament of the endangered child ostensibly in official custody. In any event, the picture only gets progressively more protracted, dumber and bloodier. “The Tie That Binds” is one of those films that’s so violent you have to wonder what the MPAA is saving its NC-17 rating for.

(To give credit where credit is due, it is stunningly photographed by Bobby Bukowski, who can count the notable Nancy Savoca films “Household Saints” and “Dogfight” among his worthier projects.)

Strick encourages Carradine and Hannah, both of whom have plenty of first-rate work to their credit, to pull out all the stops, creating a pair of monsters who would be laughable were not a child involved. Indeed, the film’s one true note is the remarkable portrayal by little Julia Devin, who expresses convincingly and consistently the confusion, terror and conflicting emotions of all the terrible traumas that Janie has endured. You can only come away hoping that Devin herself has not been seriously affected by appearing in this sicko trash.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong terror, violence and language, and for a scene of sexuality. Times guidelines: The film’s extreme violence would make you think it would warrant an NC-17 rating.

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‘The Tie That Binds’

Daryl Hannah: Leann Netherwood

Keith Carradine: John Netherwood

Moira Kelly: Dana Clifton

Vincent Spano: Russell Clifton

Julia Devin: Janie

A Buena Vista release of a Hollywood Pictures presentation of an Interscope Communications/Polygram Filmed Entertainment production. Director Wesley Strick. Producers David Madden, Patrick Markey, John Morrissey, Susan Zachary. Executive producers Ted Field, John Brown and Robert W. Cort. Screenplay by Michael Auerbach. Cinematographer Bobby Bukowski. Editor Michael N. Knue. Costumes Betsy Heimann. Music Graeme Revell. Production designer Marcia Hinds-Johnson. Art director Bo Johnson. Set decorator Don Diers. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.