The Family - 1/2 smiles

I was hoping that “The Family” would be a good movie. After all, with a cast of Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer, you’d think the chances are pretty high. This is the latest effort from French action director Luc Besson, who mixes violence and comedy with jarring results and it takes a long time to establish the story. De Niro is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-mob boss from Brooklyn who’s snitched on his former cohorts and must disappear, along with his wife and two kids. Newly named the Blakes, they set up in a picturesque Normandy village. There, Fred and the kids Belle and Warren try to assimilate. They’re not very successful since they all have varying degrees of anger management issues. However, the villagers all seem to speak fluent English as do the kids at school. But this is a mainstream movie and we all know how American audiences don’t relish reading subtitles so of course everyone speaks English. Watching over the family are a couple of FBI handlers and their boss, played by Jones at his cranky best.

The main problem with this movie is the violence. Fred can’t refrain from beating people to a pulp or to death even, if he feels disrespected. Maggie (Pfeiffer) tries to rein in her husband, but even she’s not above blowing up the local market when she feels slighted. As for daughter Belle (Dianna Agron), she also beats up fellow students as a way to deal with her problems. Brother Warren (John D’Leo) has the most self-control, but he’s involved in other criminal activities. So even in the name of black comedy, the intermittent violence is grating. “The Family” is un-funny and filled with Italian-American stereotypes and Mafia clichés. Nothing is original. It should be better.  9/15/13