Movie Review: “The Family”

Once upon a time, there was a movie called The Family, starring the studded cast of Robert Deniro, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Pfieffer, as well as actors that I haven’t heard of yet, such as Dianna Agron and John D’Leo. The directer was Luc Besson, who did work for Frontier(s) and the Taken movies. I wanted to see this movie, but alas, ’twas not all fairytale and make believe in the land of reality finds framework.

Instead, my friends raved and raved about how they wanted to see Insidious: Chapter 2. As much as a horror-fan as I am, I did not want to see this movie, but when came down to it, I parted ways with my endeavors and joined them on theirs. Insidious: Chapter 2 ended up being absolutely terrible, and now, after seeing The Family, I can honestly say that I made a big mistake. I should have blazed a path of my own and let my friends catch flame in the cross-hairs.

The Family was neither adored nor beloved, with negative reviews from critics and mixed reviews from the general public, and not only that, but considering the cast, the movie was a big box-office disappointment. And yet, I enjoyed The Family, more or less, and for better or worse. As you might expect, the story focuses around a family, filled with brutality and violence raining in the crevices and dampening wherever they go with blood.

However, after the Mafia is chasing after the family for their previous discrepancies, leaving for Witness Protection agencies to make brash attempts at relocating them every ninety days. They bring elements that we have already witnessed numerous times before, and it’s incredibly over-the-top and crass with its delivery, however, there is some humor to be withdrawn from the nonlinear-quality regarding the story itself.

The movie continuously takes elements from classic gangster films, and for that, I think a lot of viewers will be disappointed. This movie doesn’t necessarily try to measure up to any of them, but rather, it tries to pay homage, while at the same time exaggerate them. While this movie never really had a chance at winning any Academy Awards, I do believe that it does offer up some entertainment-value, and it’s not as if the performances are lacking. The cast is capable and while they don’t bring the best performances of their careers, I found for Robert Deniro to be particularly amusing in this movie.

There was a lot of silliness to his character, and I thought that he pulled it off well. There are moments that could have been done a lot better if they wanted to crank up the emotion, for example, there’s a scene where Robert Deniro’s character gives his take on a movie, and it sounds like something worth getting invested in, however, they skip past in before transitioning back to the mindless incoherency that plagues the entirety of the film.

The movie is riddled with illogical happenstances, as well as nonsensical plot-holes, but core-actors kept everything together. What I praised about the movie earlier, this being the nonlinear storytelling, is also the biggest flaw about the film. The pacing feels absolutely allover the place, as if it doesn’t know what it wants to get across. This keeps it from being a great movie, but also keeps it as an enjoyable one, simply because of the audacity of some of the things that happened. In an effort to keep it simple, I’ll say that the movie isn’t anything tremendous. There’s a lot of problems with the story that cripple the movie, but the actors and actresses make valiant efforts in keeping the film from falling. And while it still falls. They keep it from crashing and burning.

So, alas, this story has no happy ending, but it’s still fucking better than Insidious 2.