“See, the hardest thing for me was leaving the life. I still love the life.” — Goodfellas
The Family is a mafia comedy about how old habits die hard and how you can take the family out of the mafia, but can’t take the mafia out of the family. Giovanni Manzoni (Robert De Niro) was a Brooklyn mobster who ratted on his associates in order to secure a place for his family in witness protection, including wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), daughter Belle (Dianna Agron), and son Warren (John D’Leo). However, the Manzonis find it difficult to shed their rough ways, causing their security supervisor (Tommy Lee Jones) to move them around after every mishap with the locals. Now sent to a quiet town in Normandy, Giovanni (under the assumed name of Fred Blake) and his family attempt to live their lives without incident, but Giovanni’s past associates will stop at nothing at tracking him down no matter where Witness Protection places him.
I’ve seen too many bad De Niro movies since 1997 (the last year when his number of good roles outweighed the bad) to know that a spark has come back. Perhaps it’s the mob-related material of The Family, perhaps it’s Martin Scorsese‘s name attached as an executive producer, or perhaps he was reinvigorated by the critical praise he received for his role in last year’s Silver Linings Playbook — whatever it is, there’s a world of difference between the De Niro of The Family and the De Niro I saw just over a year ago in Red Lights (and I thought he was somewhat motivated in that one, too). So while the very fact that De Niro looks like he actually cares about what he’s doing here is a good sign for his career, that’s like patting a “C” student on the back for finally handing in a good homework assignment.
On the other hand, Michelle Pfeiffer is an actress who thankfully steadfastly refuses to be cast aside like so many actresses who are over 45. Nonetheless, many of her recent roles haven’t give her much to do except stand around, look beautiful, and shout commands from a position of authority. While she’s obviously matriarchal in The Family, the role thankfully has more depth than her other recent roles. She even gets to use her best Edie Falco voice to portray a Brooklyn mob wife.
Tommy Lee Jones is fine in his role as the government agent supervising the family, but it’s not like he has anything particularly interesting to do except yell at De Niro’s character for making his life harder. Oddly, most of the dialogue scenes featuring De Niro and Jones together are shot over the actors’ shoulders, meaning that the interaction between these two celebrated actors is kept to a visual minimum. Outside of the De Niro/Al Pacino scenes in Michael Mann‘s Heat, I’m not sure I can think of a movie that tries so hard to not show the two most famous actors in the film on screen at the same time during their scenes together.
The film picks up speed in the final half hour with a very funny callback to one of De Niro’s greatest films (which other reviewers will probably ruin for you). But that humor abruptly halts as the film has a major dramatic tone shift. The death and destruction caused by the Manzoni family is played for laughs for three-quarters of the movie, but when the violence is turned toward them in the final half hour the audience is supposed to feel worried. While major tonal shifts are pulled off successfully in dozens of films every year, The Family isn’t one of them. It can’t complete the shift from goofy black comedy to tense thriller.
During the press conference, both De Niro and Pfeffier mentioned that they wished they had more scenes together. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, with no disrespect toward Agron and D’Leo, I wish the film was entirely focused on De Niro and Pfeiffer’s characters and their relationship. I know I haven’t said much about D’Leo and Agron’s characters, but that’s because their roles are mainly background to De Niro’s. D’Leo does well as a troublemaker mafia wannabe, but Agron’s character is really inconsistent. She goes from a strong-willed ass kicker to emotional wreck when she launches herself into a relationship with a student teacher that’s rather pointless and frankly uncomfortable.
It’s been almost twenty years since The Family writer/director Luc Besson released his breakthrough film Leon: The Professional. I hoped The Family would have had the heart of Leon, but instead it has more in common with more of his action-orientated films that he’s written like Taken and the Transporter movies. Those aren’t necessarily bad films, but they certainly aren’t family-oriented comedies. For instance, The Family is rated R, but it’s really just for language and mostly implied over-the-top violence. So is it a comedy or a mob drama ? Even the poster doesn’t seem to have the right answer. It can’t really be both unless the right tone is found, and it wasn’t.
Rating: Despite some funny parts, The Family is just not that amusing (4.5/10).
Recent Comments