RIFF RAFF

Name: RIFF RAFF
Item: RIFF RAFF
Author: Review

"A Bloody Example of Sin Being Found Out"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

RIFF RAFF is an extremely obscene, violent movie exploring how a family works to protect its own. DJ, a seemingly innocent kid, has his life thrown into chaos when his stepbrother and girlfriend arrive at their cabin in the woods. Though it takes a while for the truth to emerge, the stepbrother eventually reveals he killed a mob boss’s son and is fleeing from the mob’s retaliation. The mob catches up with the stepbrother, but his family puts their lives on the line, fighting back to save him.

RIFF RAFF is quite a stale, mediocre movie. The characters are relatively one dimensional. The story develops without any surprises. Despite a few pro-family scenes, RIFF RAFF promotes a strong Romantic worldview, with humanist, pro-evolution elements. The characters follow their hearts and set their own rules. The movie promotes sex outside of marriage, heavy drinking and murder. The characters place no value on human life. RIFF RAFF also features at least 146 mostly strong obscenities and profanities. RIFF RAFF is excessive and unacceptable. It’s not interesting enough to watch in the first place.

Content:

(RoRo, HH, EvEvEv, B, C, LLL, VVV, SS, NN, AA, DD, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong Romantic worldview, with humanist and pro-evolution elements characters follow their hearts and believe they are the makers of their own destiny, characters live in a world where they set the rules, the movie’s young adult narrator follows these wrongful activities (including drinking, seeking a sexual relationship outside of marriage, and shooting someone in the chest), characters feel little to no remorse for their past immoral actions, the young narrator can’t stop talking about evolution and how it pertains to sex, but some of this is mitigated by a few pro-family scenes where the characters promote caring for their family, and one character wears a cross necklace and kisses and clasps it once for comfort;

Foul Language:

At least 140 obscenities (including about 110 or more “f” words, six profanities, 11 crude jokes or remarks, and three slurs;

Violence:

Very strong bloody violence, especially toward the end when multiple characters are murdered (including a shop owner is killed for being a little clueless, and his brains are shown sliding down a window pane);

Sex:

Strong sexual content includes the main character’s half-brother is shown fornicating with his girlfriend (includes a brief shot of upper female nudity), the main character’s parents are heard having marital sex, the main character was born from a relationship outside of wedlock, the main character’s half-brother has impregnated a woman outside of marriage, and characters promote this sexual lifestyle and encourage the main character to pursue it;

Nudity:

The main character’s brother’s girlfriend is shown in a T-shirt and underwear, a bra, and is later featured in a brief moment of upper female nudity, plus multiple scenes include upper male nudity;

Alcohol Use:

Moderate alcohol use as characters are shown drinking to cope with stress and the main character is given multiple beers to drink throughout the movie despite being younger than 21;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Brief scenes of smoking tobacco shown throughout, including one scene where a character smokes marijuana to get high; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Main character’s biological dad cheated on his mom.

More Detail:

RIFF RAFF is a very violent, swear-heavy movie following a family of killers who killed the wrong guy. Though DJ, the main character, is portrayed as a sweet innocent kid shielded from the real world because of his parent’s wealth, he’s corrupted throughout the movie and turns out to be just as sinful as the rest of his family. The movie is a strong example of all sin being found out, though there are much better ways to learn this lesson.

The movie opens by establishing that DJ and his family are living a comfortable, wealthy life. However, the illusion of a perfect family is shattered when Rocco, the son of DJ’s stepfather, Vincent, visits. Rocco shows up at the family’s cabin in the woods under the pretense that he just wants the family to meet his girlfriend, Marina, before she gives birth to his son, who’s due in the next couple of days. Vincent, however, is very suspicious of his son and believes him to have ulterior motives for his visit. This belief becomes even stronger when Rocco fetches his mother, Rith, Vincent’s ex-wife, from the car.

The next morning, Ruth wakes up and doesn’t know where she is. She threatens DJ until she realizes that she’s at Vincent’s vacation home. Rocco reminds her that she wanted to go on a road trip, which is why she came with Rocco and Marina to the cabin. Ruth remembers none of this, however. The last thing she recalls is being visited by Lefty, a friend from her younger life who was looking for Rocco. The movie then cuts to Lefty and his right-hand-man, Lonnie, who are tracking Rocco down. They stop at a convenience store and kill the owner even though he’s only slightly annoying. Rocco seems to be in real trouble.

After a trip to town ends in a fight, Rocco and DJ meet in the woods where Rocco explains how he met Marina. Rocco recalls meeting a girl and after taking her back to his apartment, things get crazy, and she ends up with a broken nose after falling down the stairs. When he arrives in the hospital, it looks like he abused her. Rocco tries to run from the police, but ends up getting caught. However, Marina was a nurse at the hospital and found him cute, so she unlocked the handcuffs, letting him escape. The next day, before he goes on a date with Marina, he meets with her ex-boyfriend, Johnny, who’s a major part of the organized crime in their city. Johnny gives Rocco his consent, and Rocco and Marina have been a couple ever since.

However, Rocco recalls how things went sour earlier that week when they ran into Johnny while at lunch. Johnny pulled a gun on Marina and threatened to kill the baby, causing Rocco to tackle him before beating him to death. Johnny was Lefty’s son, which is why Lefty’s now looking for Rocco, and why Rocco has fled to the middle of nowhere, bringing the people important to him with him.

After telling DJ his story, Rocco tells Vincent what happened. Now that he understands the situation, Vincent offers to give Rocco enough money for him and Marina to disappear and never come back. Rocco and Marina plan to leave the next day.

Lefty is still on Rocco’s trail, however. After arriving at Vincent’s normal house, he and Lonnie are given directions to the cabin by Vincent’s clueless neighbors. When they arrive at the cabin, they capture DJ and his entire family before Lefty explains how he is going to kill most of them.

Can Vincent and his blended family find a way to escape?

RIFF RAFF is quite a stale, mediocre movie that has any enjoyability sucked out through near-constant swearing along with unnecessary violence. The characters are relatively one dimensional, and the story develops without any surprises or major twists.

RIFF RAFF also promotes Romantic, humanist values where the characters follow their heart and what seems right to them rather than abiding by any biblical morality. Furthermore, it defends murder, arguing that it is acceptable under the right circumstances. Also, DJ can’t stop talking about evolution and how it pertains to sex. The movie features at least 140 obscenities, with 110 “f” words in total. RIFF RAFF is excessive and unacceptable. It’s also not interesting enough to watch in the first place.