The Family (Robert De Niro / Michelle Pfeiffer)

vepyewwo

The Manzoni family, a notorious mafia clan, is relocated to Normandy, France under the witness protection program, where fitting in soon becomes challenging as their old habits die hard.

Director: Luc Besson
Stars: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwZNypYmPFE

Sleepy

I miss the days when I got excited about new De Niro movies...

Loughc

Ah I see the Sopranos have finally made it to the big screen.... oh wait....

Duggy747

Back then:


These days:

D'Agger

I like the look of this tbqh - am I alone in that?

vepyewwo

Sleepy wrote: »

I miss the days when I got excited about new De Niro movies...

Well I'm excited about a new Michelle Pfeiffer movie!
Not sure about this trailer though, looks a bit all over the place tonally. Might be fun.

JP Liz V1

Martin Scorsese is an executive producer so kinda excited for this myself looks more of a mob action comedy than drama

leakyboots

Michelle Pfeiffer is still unreal...

JP Liz V1

Finally out over here but reviews so far haven't been too good

The Dom

Trailer didn't give too much away but then maybe that's because there isn't much to it.

Will find out tomorrow I suppose.

Don't like TLJ as an actor, so hope he doesn't have too much screen time.

oxygen

This got brutalised on Film2013 last night. Thats enough for me, I would say this is s**t.
What did the French ever do to warrent such hatred from the Americans, like Taken this was also directed by a french man. :?

Sleepy

Every review I've heard of this has been along the same lines: "WTF has happened to Robert de Niro!?"

Irish Aris

I didn't find it that bad actually.

But you need to have in mind that this is Luc Besson we are talking about.
Have a look at his filmography and you will see that he has a thing for ridiculous, over the top (and not in a good way) situations and directing style.

The real problem is that it isn't funny enough, so I just passed 2 pleasant hours and that's it.

You could skip this one on cinema, it might be more enjoyable from the cosiness of your couch. . .

The Dom

I found parts of this film to be horrendous, almost as bad as listening to jazz music (and I really hate jazz music) but then the movie would pick up again, find it's feet and threaten to become watchable. Then it got bad again, real bad, wanted to self harm with the frustration and pretty soon it started descending into awfulness, but followed by a great scene, well acted, shot, edited, so I'd perked up, became engrossed, and the next scene wouldn't be so bad either.

No wait, it's.. crap, just when I thought the film was saving itself it becomes cliche central and I'd reach for my jacket. Hang on though, this bit is good, yeah, loving this now, let the film marinate, yeah, where's the popcorn, man what a good scene.

What in the name of baby Jehovah is this? How could this chunk of the film follow the last? Did the director get the flu and the new one lose the script. Now it's a yawn fest, get the last director back.

Ah here we are, that's more like it, excellent stuff. Oh joy. Now I actually care whether these characters live or die.

Well I did, but now I bloody don't, what is this mess?

That pretty much sums up my experience with this film. Haven't a notion if it's good, bad or indifferent as it wouldn't sit still long enough in my head so I could decipher it. Kinda like having a wisdom tooth pulled while listening to your favourite CD. A partly pleasurably experience I'd rather quickly forget.

Fysh

Saw this last night and had great fun with it - it's a Luc Besson film about a gangster family on the run. It's been advertised as exactly what it is, and has no illusions as to what it is. I can only assume that people who hated it (like Donald Clarke's baffling 1-star review in the IT) are annoyed that it wasn't what they expected (even though it's exactly what you'd expect from Luc Besson if you've ever seen a Luc Besson film).

Tonally it reminded me of films like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. There were a few moments where the tone briefly slipped back to straight drama, but they were few and short-lived. Occasionally cheesy score moments aside, the use of music was great, and the editing provides several transitions which add to the humour.

Saw this tonight and I think that I saw a different film to the one that is being slated both here and by critics. Hard to believe that The Family is getting 1 star reviews and poor word of mouth given that it's one of the years more entertaining light hearted efforts

I'm assuming that most saw the wirds De Niro and Gangster and assumed that this would be a return to Goodfellas and Casino. And when Scorscese's name was drop everyone got their hopes way up. The Family is everything I expected from a light hearted, good natured and fun Luc Bessin venture. It's Besson having a little fun and plus like a best of. There's nothing here that Besson hasn't done a dozen times before but it's all so much fun that you can't not like it.

De Niro gives one of his best performances in years and you can tell that he's having fun and seems to relish the opportunity to poke fun at himself. The rest of the cast fare just as well and even the kids don't grate. They all ply it just the right side of farce and Besson has fun playing around with cliches and stereotypes.

The plot is a little all over the place and tonally it feels like three or four different films condensed into one, yet it's so energetic that you never really care. I'm genuinely shocked that the film has been received so poorly. It's exactly the kind of film the marketing promised. It's big, it's dumb, it's not the least bit original and its perfect for an easy evenings viewing.

Mocha Joe

Deleted User wrote: »

De Niro gives one of his best performances in years and you can tell that he's having fun and seems to relish the opportunity to poke fun at himself. The rest of the cast fare just as well and even the kids don't grate. They all ply it just the right side of farce and Besson has fun playing around with cliches and stereotypes.

Everyone's sick and tired of De Niro poking fun at himself. He's been doing it for a long time. All these cliches and stereotypes have been parodyed before and better. It would be more refreshing for De Niro to take himself seriously and put his heart into a role again. He seems happy doing these awful, tired comedy films. The novelty of De Niro doing comedy wore off about 10 years ago.

eisenberg1

I have not watched it yet, I will probably wait for DVD and watch it for what it is. I don't expect too much from De Niro anymore, you only get disappointed. I am only hoping that somewhere down the line, he will dig deep and leave us with a classic before he shuffles off ....

Mocha Joe

Mocha Joe wrote: »

Everyone's sick and tired of De Niro poking fun at himself. He's been doing it for a long time. All these cliches and stereotypes have been parodyed before and better. It would be more refreshing for De Niro to take himself seriously and put his heart into a role again. He seems happy doing these awful, tired comedy films. The novelty of De Niro doing comedy wore off about 10 years ago.

I have no problem with DeNiro doing light hearted, comedic fare. After a career built on intense , genre defining roles he obviously enjoys taking things easy and having some fun. Sure, a lot of his out put over the past decade has been atrocious but The Family is one of the few films where looks like he's having fun. It's not high brow or to be taken seriously and all the better for it. I had a blast watching the film and will happily sit down at some stage in the future and watch it again. If every De Niro role was as much fun then you'd forgive him for trash like The Big Wedding

Guy:Incognito

Just getting around to seeing this tonight. Is it set in the 90's (or before) or present day? Michelle Pfeiffer paid for her shopping in Francs, which I found odd if its not set in the past.

candy-gal1

I think it was set in the 90s yeah, going by the soundtrack/popular music of the day being mentioned, the different style of the kids in the school as the son described them etc, loved the goth/rocker looking girl in those scenes