The Family

Director Luc Besson is known for having a particular style when it comes to his films, though none of that seems present here in The Family. Instead, it feels like some dime-a-dozen action film (with a shortage of action) that randomly throws in Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Tommy Lee Jones and squanders their talents with a sloppy and unimaginative script.

The film shows how a family of four who come from the Brooklyn mafia world are adjusting to life in Normandy after De Niro's Giovanni gets them put in witness protection. So naturally, they all handle their business the way any badass mafioso would - i.e., beating the tar out of a boy with sleazy intentions, starting an organized crime circle among fellow classmates, and blowing up a supermarket out of spite. Amusing, yes, but somewhat derivative.

In some ways, if more effort was put into this, it could have been an interesting piece on developing a new life outside a life of crime, but then the movie seems to forget that it's meant to be an action-comedy, so it pulls in some hitmen in the last half hour to save face for a lack of action that doesn't involve Giovanni fantasizing about assaulting anybody who pisses him off. And therein lies the film's biggest problem: it doesn't know where it wants to go with it's characters and development. It doesn't even really take much time to establish the conflict between Giovanni and the hitmen that want his head. Most of the family's issues just happen to be resolved when the band of hitmen arrive, and it leaves it at that. Additionally, it isn't even very funny. The humor comes from the aforementioned dirty deeds that the family commits, as well as a subtle-as-a-firecracker nod to De Niro and executive producer Martin Scorsese by having Giovanni watch Goodfellas at a debate.

The Family isn't necessarily a terrible film, but it isn't one that is even really worth the price of a matinee ticket. It plods along unevenly and lacks in both action and comedy, as well as any sort of substance.