'The Joneses' can't keep up with an interesting premise

All it takes is one four-letter word — "cell" — to tip the vaguely "Twilight Zone"-like premise of "The Joneses" into something deliciously paranoid. But not for long, unfortunately.

This initially promising but finally unremarkable film concerns a cell of secret salespeople — as opposed to hidden terrorists — living as a fake family within a neighborhood of habitual consumers.

The infiltrators — hired by some kind of secret, international industry that, well, is bent on selling expensive brands of everything — aren't looking to create mayhem but rather to conduct subtle brainwashing by example among upper-middle-class peers.

David Duchovny and Demi Moore star as Steve and Kate Jones, who turn up one day as the new owners of a beautiful house on a lovely street. Their adolescent kids, Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth), are good-looking and outgoing, and quickly establish a trendsetting rapport with fellow students based on their expensive clothes, cellphones and whatnot.

Behind all the smiles and the bling, however, Steve and Kate are not married, and Jenn and Mick are unrelated. The Joneses don't exist, except as a living commercial for how materialism makes a family happy.

While Steve golfs with other husbands, showing off new clubs, cars and watches, Kate draws the attention of women with her power-walking shoes and upscale makeup items. The idea: The more the Jones' unsuspecting community buys the same products, the better the sales record for the faux family.

At first, screenwriter-director Derrick Borte seems to be onto something with his subconscious linkage between real-world enemies who actually hate Americans and commercial manipulators who want to convince us we're irrelevant if we don't buy stuff we don't need.

But the notion doesn't really go anywhere once "The Joneses" takes a romantic-comedy spin with Steve and Kate.

In the end, "The Joneses" works better as a satire about what actually constitutes family: people who watch out for one another, who care for one another despite obstacles. Toward that end, Duchovny's low-key charm and Moore's interesting tension between strength and vulnerability work quite well.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com