What exactly are you supposed to do when a shitty parent dies? You don’t cheer, that’s crass, but you don’t really mourn, either. Do you honor the dying wishes of the person in question? I don’t quite get that. This is a movie thing – dude honors estranged father and learns a little something about life. But if he spent the past 20 years NOT honoring his father’s wishes, why start now? Just because it’s the last one? Look, fella, one more ignore and you’re free, which is all you ever wanted. Huh? Huh? I suppose that’s a little callous, but hey, I didn’t estrange anybody and expect him to carry out my dying wishes. That’s kind of a dick move, too, ain’t it?
Wheeler/dealer Sam (Chris Pine) finds out dad died. It’s sad, but Sam didn’t like him, so whatchagonnado? After failing to 
scam his way out of visiting his mother (oh, did I mention, Sam is serious douche as well?), he finds himself on another coast accepting will terms when suddenly a movie breaks out. Executor Philip Baker Hall gives him a bag containing $150K and instructions to deliver it to a boy Sam doesn’t know. This has to be one of the worst jokes I’ve ever heard. Can you imagine a bad parent leaving you a small fortune with the instructions to give it to somebody else? How cruel is that? Is it not awful enough your parenting sucked?
The boy Josh (Michael Hall D’Addario) turns out to be a lost nephew. Sam can’t bring himself to tell his newfound half sister Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), “hey, I’m your brother. Dad was a dick. Here’s some money. Sorry.” And this becomes the plot of the movie. I did mention the douche part, right? See what follows are a series of uncomfortable scenes in which Brother Dearest wheedles his way into this single parent family without offering a reason. Yeah, OK.
That includes the scene in which this single man befriends the teen boy without intervention after hanging outside the boy’s school and following his bus, and then, of course, adult man balks about giving boy a ride home, as if that were the problem. And as Sam gets closer to Frankie, a sexual and vulnerable single woman, we work our way up to the incest angle. And there’s no reason we shouldn’t. Hot guy starts doing favors for a single mom and gives no reason – what is she supposed to conclude? Seriously? There’s a creepy vibe all over this subtext.
But don’t let that particular piece of writing sway you; this plot was a loser from the word “go.” Man finds lost sister. He’s given a pouch of money to give to her. He has financial issues of his own. The conclusion was written before the film was a ½ hour old. A strangely touching side to the transparent finale kept People Like Us from entirely being People Don’t Like Us.
Surprise! Surprise!/You’ve got a sister
Dad never told you?/You musta just missed her
Just tell her the truth/forget the house calls
You’re the guy here/why don’t you have balls?
Rated PG-13, 114 Minutes
D: Alex Kurtzman
W: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci & Jody Lambert
Genre: Contrived
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The inbred
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The society against unorthodox wills
