The Family Review

Coming after the big blockbuster summer season, the month of September always has a couple of odd releases that the movie studios weren't sure what to do with for a number of reasons. In the case of “The Family”, the main reason is that an action-packed mafia dark comedy would have been popular around 15 years ago but not so much anymore.  The prospect of a film starring a still relevant Robert De Niro and directed by Luc Besson, he of “Leon: The Professional” fame, would have garnered lots of interest back in the day. Jump ahead to 2013 and the prospect is much less exciting. With “The Family”, De Niro continues his trend of uninspired movie choices of late, and aside from his Oscar-nominated role in “Silver Linings Playbook” last year, he has mainly stuck to romantic ensemble comedies or shockingly inept action movies that nobody sees. And while Besson is still busy producing and directing films, he hasn’t had a bonafide success as a director since “The Fifth Element” and now sticks to producing B movie action-oriented fare such as surprise success “Taken”.

In “The Family”, De Niro stars as a former mafia boss who turns snitch and with a big contract out on his head, he finds himself on the run in a small town in rural France with his wife and two teenaged children in tow. While all this sounds very riveting so far, “The Family” doesn’t even bother trying doing a fresh take on such unoriginal material and everything becomes fairly predictable and obvious within the first 15 minutes.  Posing as the “Blake” family and with the assistance of an FBI agent played by Tommy Lee Jones (whose small role is one of the few enjoyable aspects of this movie), Giovanni (De Niro) begins writing his memoirs to keep himself busy while the rest of his family tries to blend in. The kids go to school and the wife (Pfeiffer) tries to find a place for herself at a local church.  And as is always the case with movies that star characters on the run on the witness protection program, their cover is eventually blown and the bad guys show up with guns and murderous intent for the final act. “The Family” follows a similar trajectory.

Something worth noting at this point is that this movie constantly finds itself toeing an awkward and unpleasant line throughout most of the proceedings between its comedic and action elements.  “The Family” shares many similar elements with “In Bruges”, a superior movie that also features characters on the run hiding in some exotic locale in Europe and a lot of the humor is of the similar fish out of water variety. But in all the places where In Bruges’ blend of dark comedy and extreme violence worked quite well, “The Family” crashes and burns miserably. One could easily make the argument that every single member of the Blake family might be construed to be a violent and unstable psychopath but their brutal and at times shocking resort to violence at a moment’s notice are displayed as moments of laughter and comedy. The French locals aren’t very enamored with their new American residents and all of the Blakes quickly and “hilariously” assault, maim, bomb, and destroy anything and anybody that rubs them the wrong way and somehow get away with it. The usage of the word “fuck” by the characters at certain times becomes a running gag of sorts and that gives you a very good indication of the kind of humor that can be found here.

A review of “The Family” would not be complete however without mentioning the awful child actors and their bizarre storylines that just don’t belong in this movie. Belle (Agron) is a pretty and psychotic girl obsessed with finding true love and Warren (D’Leo) soon becomes a mafia boss of sorts in the local high school they both attend. Where this leads them is neither interesting nor that relevant to the main storyline and features some really bad acting and some really generic stereotypes. And with a title like “The Family”, there is a surprising lack of development of the relationships between the family members, especially between Giovanni and his two kids. Instead, Giovanni finds himself preoccupied with brutalizing plumbers and chemical plant managers in increasingly horrific ways to solve a water problem in his house.  In the end, the muddled execution is obviously the problem that prevents “The Family” from being a fun and entertaining flick it had the potential to be and we rarely see glimpses of Luc Besson’s unique style that would have elevated the bland subject matter.

SPOILER: While not a real spoiler, it should be mentioned the way that the mafia bosses discover the location of the Blakes comes off as equal parts obscurely bizarre and moronically stupid. However, the joy of discovering the exact way this happens should be left for those willing to devote their time to watch this, a choice that this reviewer would not personally recommend.

C

Movie info:

Runtime: 111 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron

Director: Luc Besson

Screenplay: Luc Besson, Michael Caleo

Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast