In a film strikingly out of harmony, parallel strains of comedy and action jarringly clash in The Family. Usually likeable crowd-pleaser Luc Besson steers a trio of AAA-list actors (Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones and Michele Pfeiffer) into a cul-de-sac of scenes that far too often miss hitting the funny bone. In fact, The Family is far more a “smile” movie than an out-and-out “laugh” one.
DeNiro, fresh off performances in The Silver Linings Playbook and Limitless that suggested he was priming for a comeback, here plays a mob guy who drags his family into a witness-protection program. In France. Thus the French director Besson can play both ends of the cultural clash with the nitty-gritty Brooklyn family that includes a take-no-shit wife (a very good Pfeiffer, channeling her Married To The Mob character) and two kids who couldn’t be more chips-off-the-old-block. Before long, Pfeiffer blows up a grocery store after overhearing anti-American sentiments from the salesclerks. Her character may have “working class” written all over it but this chick’s fluent in French. The kids have their own mean streaks that don’t exactly rise to the top of the moral ramparts. Belle (Diana Agron of Glee) is pretty deft at wielding a tennis racket against a male aggressor.
Giovanni Manzoni (DeNiro), a piece of work who has his moments here, can’t sit still and wantonly gives a plummer he doesn’t like a beating but takes him to the hospital afterward to show he’s not such a bad guy. Later, Gio gives a businessman responsible for the brown water that comes out of his faucet, a lesson that includes a chain tied to the back of the car. In between, he spars with FBI agent Tommy Lee, assigned to monitor him, and starts writing his memoir. An American-style cookout brings together our outsider family with the townspeople. It includes Gio (fantasy only this time) shoving a French guy’s face on the hot grill after Frenchy gave him a bit of unsolicited barbecuing advice.
It’s the kind of town where only a few policemen are present at the police station–a detail that leads to a bunch of gangsters (you’ll spot a couple of veterans of The Sopranos in this group of course) lurching after the informant Gio for a less than climactic finale. You don’t want to know how they find out his whereabouts. It’s one of those implausible plot facilitators that stretches patience so thin you’ll want to shriek a loud “No” in the movie theater.
Besson (the brilliant La Femme Nikita, The Professional) has a talent for over-the-top violence. He revels in its exaltation, often with such high craftsmanship it forces the viewer to ignore his utter brusqueness and indelicacy in favor of rolling with it for maximum kicks. He even instills a genuine admiration for attempting a project like The Family. Occasionally a sharp shift in tone will come mid-scene , leaving a feeling of “Are you kidding?–hmm, that was pretty good.” Far too often, it feels like he’s spinning his wheels.
DeNiro fans shouldn’t give up on him, though. Even though he has the lame The Big Wedding and the miserable New Year’s Eve on his recent credits, there’s hope another Silver Linings comes his way. Meanwhile, there’s a scene in The Family where Gio, somehow mistaken for a notable author, is asked to watch Goodfellas with the local French film society. While Besson is having his little joke as Gio reflects on the all-too-familiar DeNiro character in the film, see if the scene doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies as you realize here’s the great DeNiro reduced to parodying his former acting glory like some poor huckster on The Shopping Channel.