“The Family” Movie Reviews
As the new Michelle Pfeiffer movie “The Family” showing today in the U.S, September 13, tons of reviews are coming out on the internet as well, we will sure to make a REVIEW SUMMARY later on, but from the latest ones I have seen so far, there’s very positive comments about the performance of our mob queen – Michelle Pfeiffer! Fox News called her excellent and steals the picture and Variety even not liking the movie that much, also called her a “standout”!
Robert De Niro plays a great mobster, but Michele Pfeiffer steals ‘The Family’
By Justin Craig | FoxNews.com
Robert De Niro as a mobster is the safest role the star can play at this juncture of his career after a streak of several below average films (“Silver Linings Playbook” excluded). With the popular “Analyze This,” De Niro took a bawdy and comedic twist on his famed mob persona, but with Luc Besson’s dark and entertaining “The Family,” the Oscar-winner keeps most, but not all, of the laughs at bay and maintains his grittier edge.
When mobster Giovanni Manzoni snitches on his own mob family, he, his wife and his children are placed into the witness protection program and sent to the tranquil and remote Normandy, France to begin their new life. Under the surveillance of FBI agent Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones), the Manzonis – now the Blakes – must try to fit in with the local French culture, which for a group of reckless, violent mobsters is easier said than done.
Besson and Michael Caleo’s screenplay, based on the novel by the excellent Tonino Benacquista, is nicely crafted, if a little maudlin at times. Each of the four Blake family members gets equal play, allowing the audience to connect with each one’s social and emotional challenges. All four members of the Blakes unload their heavy consciences in their own way, although the women out-perform the men; Michelle Pfeiffer is excellent with her thick Brooklyn accent and gaudy late 70s fashion and hair. Like her husband and children, she can be offensively violent one moment then a whimsical homebody the next. But to alleviate her grief, she tries to reconnect with her faith in a local Normandy church. Diana Agron as Belle is a feisty beauty who seeks true love from her math teacher to help her move away from her crazy family. Then there’s John D’Leo as Warren, who takes the “family business” to his new high school, working the student body to his benefit.
Giovanni’s cover is to be a writer, and though he has no skill or knowledge of writing, the ex-mobster stumbles into amateurishly writing his memoirs. Besson attempts to show this vicious criminal finding his conscience through writing, which should help correct his course, but the script never gets to that. Giovanni has no real definable arc; he’s still the same brute at the end as he was in the start.
As each of the four Blakes blunder their way through their new identities, word gets back to mob kingpin Don Mimino (Dominic Chianese) as to Giovanni’s whereabouts, prompting him to dispatch his assassins. It is then up to Tommy Lee Jones and his two assistants to help protect the Blakes.
The film plays better when it focuses on the more intimate moments of the family dealing with their inner demons and attempting to connect with anything that resembles sanity. But “The Family” starts to buckle at the seams when it tries to go too big or too over-the-top. For instance, the manner in which mob kingpin Don Mimino discovers Giovanni’s location is so preposterous it breaks the even flow of the film and single-handedly wrecks a good portion of it.
Besson focuses more on the action and suspense than the comedy, which keeps the film from having an identity crisis. The overall premise is comedic, but this is a dark, often violent film that occasionally dips into humor. The comedy generally lies in the expectation of Giovanni’s supposed violent reaction to any given situation that doesn’t go his way. Not every moment of violence is shown, most are alluded to, which is smart on Besson’s part and makes the film much stronger.
With a sensational cast, one would expect the acting to be out of this world, but apart from Pfeiffer and the kids, De Niro and Jones seem exhausted and rather bored. These roles are certainly not difficult material for them and while De Niro gives the right amount of energy to keep one’s attention for two hours, this just isn’t one of his most exciting performances.
However, De Niro and Pfeiffer’s shared screen time is enticing, to say the least. They are a perfect fit, especially as a mob family. Whether they are bickering over a murder or plumbing, they both deliver laughs. But its Pfeiffer’s commanding presence as the diva mob wife that steals the picture.
An interesting cultural twist in “The Family” curtails the usual European stereotypes. Typically in films with fish-out-of-water Americans in a foreign country, the comedy focuses on the stereotypes of the foreigners. However, since this is written and directed by French Luc Besson, the comedic stereotypes all fall on the Americans, especially regarding food, with jokes about America’s craving for peanut butter, love of hamburgers, loudly sipping soda through straws and the notion of an overly obese population. The movie also specifically targets pop culture’s view of the mafia, even lampooning and self-referencing De Niro and executive producer Martin Scorsese’s mob classic “Goodfellas.”
“The Family” may not be top tier De Niro, but it is excellent Pfeiffer and a welcome return for director Luc Besson to the crime genre that made his name.
MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 1 hour and 52 minutes.
Curiously airless, weightless and tonally uncertain, Luc Besson’s mafia comedy falls flat.
When properly applied, bad taste can have a wonderfully liberating, palliative effect, and contemporary French cinema has produced few more discerning mainstream vulgarians than Luc Besson. But without any sense of joy in transgression, or real humor behind all the bloody irony, his mafia comedy “The Family” falls flat. Curiously airless, weightless and tonally uncertain, the pic mixes mass murder, dismemberment and rape threats with sappy sentimentality, fish-out-of-water gags and groan-worthy meta-humor, yet very little of it manages to leave any impression. Worth seeing only to catch cast standout Michelle Pfeiffer recapture hints of the knives-out nastiness of her “Scarface” and “Married to the Mob” roles, this Relativity release nonetheless ought to do decent business.
It isn’t that “The Family” doesn’t have any good ideas. In fact, it might have too many. Picking up with a mafia family as they arrive at a creaky house in Normandy — the latest of many witness-relocation destinations for Brooklyn wiseguy-turned-snitch Giovanni Manzoni (Robert De Niro) — Besson would seem to have a full palette with which to paint. Watching Giovanni employ leg-breaking tactics to negotiate buck-passing French bureaucracy theoretically ought to resonate with disgruntled expats and Francophobes. (And in surer hands, De Niro’s role as a domesticated heavy still very much in touch with his sociopathic tendencies could have been a sly upending of his “Analyze This” and “Meet the Parents” parts.) Then there’s his 17-year-old daughter, Belle (Dianna Agron), whose sudden shifts from moony high-school romanticism to brutal violence would seem to have plenty of potential. And the Cosa Nostra strategies 14-year-old Warren (John D’Leo) uses to negotiate lycee politics could have perhaps made for a whole film on their own.Always an efficient orchestrator of balls-out ultraviolence, Besson has never quite grasped the rhythms of English-language comedy, and his earlier English pictures, like “The Fifth Element,” largely succeeded through megalomaniacal moxie alone. “The Family” showcases a slower, quieter strain of Besson’s signature style, yet it’s scarcely any smarter, and even its better comedic ideas wind up diluted by overly orchestrated setups or fumbled payoffs.
There’s no guilty glee in the sight of mob mother Maggie (Pfeiffer) blowing up a grocery store whose proprietor dares scoff at her peanut-butter fixation, and the explanation for an early scene in which the supposedly undercover family throws a barbecue for the entire town seems to have been left on the cutting-room floor. (The less said about the Martin Scorsese reference, the better.) For a film set in Normandy from a French writer-director (Besson and Michael Caleo adapted the script from Tonino Benacquista’s novel), it never even feels particularly French: Having every character onscreen speak perfect English is obviously a commercial necessity, yet it’s scarcely acknowledged that this is not the town’s native language.
These minor quibbles aside, “The Family” is technically well made, and Besson is still capable of staging horrifying murders and torture scenes in a uniquely casual, matter-of-fact way. A characteristically sharp Pfeiffer provides most of the pic’s genuine laughs and nearest attempts at actual empathy, and it must be said that De Niro is at least never caught sleepwalking. Tommy Lee Jones, however, seems entirely disengaged in his scenes as Giovanni’s FBI handler.
Reviewed at the Landmark, Los Angeles, Sept. 11, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 111 MIN.
Singing ‘Soprano’ in Normandy | In ‘The Family,’ De Niro and Pfeiffer Head a Mob Family
By Stephen Holden | September 12, 2013 | THE NEW YORK TIMES
Mobsters can’t help themselves. It’s in their nature to solve problems the family way — with baseball bats, explosives and anything at hand that leaves an opponent dead or writhing in agony. Sadistic violence is a reflexive response to having grown up in households where fathers regularly beat their sons senseless for no reason.
So says Giovanni Manzoni (Robert De Niro), a mobster in hiding, when explaining his pathological behavior inLuc Besson’s dark action comedy “The Family.” Giovanni, who ratted out his fellow mobsters to the feds and is now in the witness protection program, has a new identity. Under the name Fred Blake, he has been moved with his family to a village in Normandy. There they face many frustrations, starting with the ancient plumbing.
When Giovanni’s wife, Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), shops and is snidely informed, “We don’t stock stuff like that,” she blithely burns down the supermarket. Maggie is disgusted by the French preference for butter and cream over olive oil. And in the movie’s funniest speech, she rails about the awful things these dairy products do to your insides.
Ms. Pfeiffer is no stranger to mob wives, having played them wonderfully in “Married to the Mob” and “Scarface.”Because her portrayal of Maggie has only the slightest tinge of parody, her character feels authentic. When Ms. Pfeiffer tears up, which she does more than once, you weep with her.
The role of Giovanni could have been a walk-through for Mr. De Niro, whose character, given his new identity, calls himself a writer and begins typing his memoirs. But Mr. De Niro gives a surprisingly nuanced performance of a monster offering a long list of bogus reasons to excuse his evil. The character is charming in a rough-hewed way, but lethal. He loves inflicting pain and misery.
With their mobster lineage, the Manzoni children introduce a whole new set of values to the school in which they enroll. Sexy, tough and 17, Belle (Dianna Agron of “Glee”) has a way with a tennis racket when a boy makes an unwelcome pass. Fixing her predatory gaze on a studious young math whiz she covets, she pins him against a locked door.
Her 14-year-old brother, Warren (John D’Leo), immediately sets about organizing shady larcenous operations with students who are more than eager to join his syndicate. The movie unabashedly glorifies these crime family children and portrays their Gallic counterparts as lily-livered wusses.
The style of the movie — directed by Mr. Besson from a screenplay he wrote with Michael Caleo and adapted from Tonino Benacquista’s novel, “Malavita” — might be described as screwball noir. If there aren’t a lot of belly laughs, “The Family” stirs up an appalled amusement at its gleeful amorality. Some of the heartiest laughs come from the grisly scenes of Giovanni triumphantly venting his rage when he doesn’t get instant gratification or feels disrespected.
The bad vibes that greet the Manzonis upon their arrival threaten to incite a massacre when they invite their neighbors to a get-acquainted barbecue, and the guests condescendingly criticize Giovanni’s grilling techniques. Giovanni, his face frozen in a facetious grin, endures their scorn while a fantasy sequence shows what he would really like to do to them. At the screening I attended, the more cruelty the Manzonis unleashed, the louder the audience cheered.
That response is similar to the enthusiasm that greets Giovanni when he gets carried away with his own stories in a discussion after a local film society screening of “Goodfellas.” At his side, observing him with increasing alarm, is his F.B.I. handler (Tommy Lee Jones, in a thankless role that he manages to imbue with some gravity).
When his New York enemies catch wind of Giovanni’s whereabouts and descend on the Normandy coast, the humor recedes, guns are drawn, and “The Family” transforms into a firefight in which the Manzonis heroically stand up to their would-be executioners.
The movie has holes galore. It has abrupt tonal shifts, an incoherent back story and abandoned subplots. It doesn’t even try for basic credibility. But buoyed by hot performances, it sustains a zapping electrical energy.
“The Family” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has extreme, gory violence, strong language and sexual situations.
Alan
Bond,
It has been eerily quiet for some months with little Pfeiffer news but with the release of “The Family” your reporting has gained momentum. I always appreciate your efforts. I have been watching the reviews as they roll in and the Rotten Tomatoes site has been especially depressing. However, you have captured comments on Michelle’s acting from three of the critics that I regard highly and I find the comments particularly gratifying with respect to Michelle’s performance. Earlier on this site, I had expressed a concern about the difficulty of combining grand scale graphic violence and comedy. Many critics judge that Luc Beeson’s directing and the screen play are flawed in that regard. Nonetheless, as I predicted she would, Michelle has soldered on with her remarkable acting skills. I am pleased to learn that she has a project that starts in February. Perhaps she is on the road to attaining her best performance. She has promised that it is still inside her. Bond, Thank you for your excellent work. I hope to see “The Family” during this weekend.
Alan
I am pleased to learn that Richard Roeper has taken Roger Ebert’s role as columnist for the “Chicago Sun-Times.” His treatment of “The Family”
seems very fair and, of course, he gives some recognition to Michelle. I was especially pleased with the “A” rating that he gave to “People Like Us.” Unlike many critics he seems to bring a broad range of movie appreciation to his work.
MorrisseyBond
I’m really appreciate everything u said Alan and all your support to the site! Have you seen the movie yet? U’re so lucky as we still don’t have the release date here yet! The rating is not so good on Rotten & Tomatoes which surprised me, but everything about Michelle is quite nice so far.
Alan
Bond,
I saw “the Family” this afternoon. I loved it. Besson let the actors find themselves in the movie. (Now I know why Pfeiffer was regarded as “difficult “by Robert Towne in Tequila Sunrise. He interrupted her when she was in character and was getting it right. Besson let her go and he was mining gold.) Toward the end of the movie, Michelle crawled on the floor with a kitchen knife (so un-Pfeiffer-like) and stabbed her husband’s would-be assassin. She risked everything to preserve the family.
In her interviews for “The Family” Pfeiffer mentioned that she had complained to Beeson that he could cut 30 minutes and her character would be gone. Beeson replied that Maggie “is the heart and the soul of the movie.” Again, I think that Beeson “got it.”
In a scene near the end of the movie, Belle was stopped from her teenage-unrequited–love induced suicide attempt when she saw the mobsters unload from their cars far below her suicide perch. She realized that her family was in extreme danger and she weighed in to preserve the family.
I regard the blood and gore of the movie as surreal and a spoof on mob-movie violence. I am among those who don’t find violence or over-the-top action as titillating or very funny , but I regard the preservation of the family unit, as eccentric as the context might be in the movie, as the message of the movie. In the final scene, as the family drove away from Normandy to another witness protection location, (in a scene that paralleled the beginning of the movie when they were coming to their new location in Normandy), the battered family was preserved and together in the car (the loyal family-loving dog ,“Malivita,” seemed to have gotten the worst of it). Michelle with all of her facial cuts rode in the passenger seat with her family gathered around her. Michelle in her spot on acting style embodied Beeson’s reassurance to her that she was the “heart and soul.”
Now I understand more fully Pfeiffer’s hiatus from movie making in order to raise her kids. And now I understand the restrictions that she placed on herself when she was asked to audition for roles when she felt that she needed to be close to her husband, children and her family. She further demonstrated her core values in “The Family.”
I thought that the name change from “Malvaita” to “The Family” was problematic. Googling “Malavital” is easier and the name is sexier than “The Family” even in American-English. But now I get it: for the American audience it is appropriate to use the title, “The Family.” Even among the worst of us rough-hewn Americans, our families are among the best cultural aspects that we Americans have to offer. Pfeiffer fully embodies this aspect. (All of this aside, I do feel that the movie has structural problems, but I really liked it overall).
Also, this is not to say that the movie is without potential cross-cultural problems. I, myself, have always been confused about French tastes in American entertainment: Jerry Lewis-comedy, Barry White-romantic music; what’s that about? I am looking forward to the French reaction. Will Beeson’s countrymen regard him as traitor or a satirist?
Alan
Sorry. As I read my September 15 post, I realized that I had engaged in extreme spoiler activity.
MorrisseyBond
hehe…..I know! but never mind 🙂
Alan
I have read a number of reviews of “The Family” and I have come to the conclusion that movie ratings that are a simple arithmetic tally of a number of reviews are statistically invalid. Rotten Tomatoes is the glaring example. For one thing, some reviewers are more competent than others. The Chicago Times and New York Times reviews are usually even handed. They may often recognize that there are audience segments and suggest that the movie would be enjoyed by one demographic or cultural group but not another. Some reviews are ridiculous. Read Kevin Carr’s review on the website “7M.” Factor weighting of reviewers is warranted. Furthermore, the decision that a reviewer has judged that a movie is good or bad is subjective. The best reviewers seem to appreciate some aspects of a movie but also point out its weaknesses. A clear judgement of a bad or good review by a composite rater may not be warranted.
The composite ratings seem to work only when a movie is exceptional or glaringly terrible,
Paul S
Alan, I haven’t had he opportunity to watch “Malivata/The Family”, but I have read your recent comments both here and on the “7M” website and I’m in full agreement with what you say about the competence of film reviewers.
Unfortunately sites such as Rotten Tomatoes,The IMDb and the numerous blogging platforms have provided a platform for some very ill-informed people to present their opinions as gospel.
I actually heard a movie blogger say recently: “The only movie reviews outside of blogs I might read are in the free newspapers you see in the subway and train…besides that most of what I read about movies is through blogs.”
For me writing a statement like this wasn’t just dismissing professional film criticism, it was dismissing film as a respectable art form.
I’m sure when people require a lawyer or a doctor they want the services of a professional, and if you found out that your doctor was a quack I’m sure you would dismiss him summarily, but when it comes to film some people seem to be satisfied with the services of amateurs.
You know I like to write about films myself, and I like to discuss films with people like you, who are not pros, only aficionados. But I often stop and think who am I to judge a work created by people I don’t know, under circumstances I don’t understand unless the people involved want to make that knowledge public?”
I’m sure if a blogger was as good as the likes of Jonathan Rosenbaum or James Berardinelli , he wouldn’t remain a blogger for long.
Being a pro film critic doesn’t necessarily made you a good writer, but when someone hires you I don’t doubt they will at least check your credentials.
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
Alan
Paul S,
Thank you for your kind comments. Given your vast knowledge of film and the industry I am flattered. I have been hunting for the video of Barry Norman’s famously shameless interview of Michelle Pfeiffer. I would love to see the famously distinguished interviewer reduced to jelly by her charms.
If you know of a source I would be grateful.
My best regards,
Alan
Paul S
You’re welcome Alan, although in my last comment I did mean to say “WE are not pros, only aficionados”.
As for Michelle’s interview with Barry Norman from the BBC’s “Film 92 Special” I don’t know of any source other than the BBC’s archive. They are notoriously strict about copyright, and you would have to obtain a licence to view footage from their motion gallery. I know the footage still exists because The BFI museum in Bradford screened the interview about 5 years ago as part of their 14th Annual Film Festival.
Finally can you believe The Age of Innocence was released in The USA 20 years ago today! How quickly time passes.
Best Wishes,
Paul
Alan
Paul,
I have watched “The Age of Innocence” a number of times recently. The twenty year anniversary and Scorsese’s involvement with “The Family” have rekindled my interest in the film. What a remarkable piece of acting and film making! It truly deserves a prominent place among film classics. Not the least of the film’s and Scorsese’s virtues is that the screenplay stays true to Edith Wharton’s writings.
I was intrigued with the razzing that the distinguished Barry Norman took because he had joined the ranks of shameless Pfeiffer-philes such as I. Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the interview footage.
My regards,
Alan