Arie Posin's The Chumscrubber is a satire of sorts on the inanity of middle-class suburban life. It's evidently based on the same southern California incident that was treated in docudrama style a couple of months ago in Alpha Dog. Kids of wealthy, negligent parents run amok, doing and dealing drugs, and a teenage psychopath takes a 13-year-old boy hostage to obtain money and drugs. The kids are deeply disturbed, their parents addled by self-absorption (shrink William Fichtner) booze (Glenn Close) or, in the case of local mayor Ralph Fiennes, having a flowerpot dropped on his head.

A memorial gathering for a boy who's committed suicide and a wedding reception for the couple whose boy has been abducted take place simultaneously and merge in the street to explosive effect. Two highly influential producers, one of them a close associate of Spielberg, the other Tarantino's longtime collaborator, have managed to draw together and waste a formidable cast.