Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Family, The
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Family, The
Family, The
Released by: Fox
Released on: December 17th, 2014.
Director: Luc Besson
Cast: Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianna Agron, John D'Leo
Year: 2013
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Written and directed by Luc Besson, 2013's The Family tells the story of Giovanni Manzoni (Robert De Niro), a mobster who is married to his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and who helps to raise their two children, Belle (Dianna Agron) and Warren (John D'Leo). Things get dicey for them when Fred winds up having to become a snitch and after he spills the beans about what the mob he's connected with his been up to, his life is obviously in danger.
And so the Manzonis, now the Blakes, go into the witness protection program and are relocated to a quaint town in the French countryside. Here they're watched over by a CIA agent named Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones). Everything seems to be more or less going as planned until the man that Giovanni snitched on orders a hit. From here, we learn that old habits die hard in this family. Even the younger members of the Manzoni clan get violent in times of tension, but Giovanni, now going under the alias of Fred, finds solace in a typewriter he uses to start writing his life story. But that guy they helped put behind bars? He's got connections on the outside, dangerous connections who have no problem following orders…
If there's one word to accurately sum up how The Family plays out, it would be uneven. There are some drastic, jarring tonal shifts throughout the movie, the kind that take what is basically a by the numbers crime story and attempt to turn it into a comedy but which come from so far out of left field that they instead knock the story off of its rails. For every serious moment, the kind that carries with it some heaviness and delivers some impact (the opening scene in which a family mistaken for the Manzoni's is slaughtered in cold blood being a prime example) we get a blood vendetta based on something as trivial as peanut butter complete with bad dialogue and corny banter. The movie continues like this throughout its running time, pulling us from left to right and never really seeming to focus on its strengths, which in this case would be the characters and the actors tasked with playing them.
Giovanni Manzoni is an interesting man. He's lead a life that could fill a book, so his intention to write his memoirs makes sense, but we don't get the focus we need to feel for him. The wizened old mobster who has not so much mellowed with age as he has been removed from situations that might set him off should be intense, intimidating and even frightening. This is De Niro, a man who has made a career out of playing these types and who, despite making a lot of bad movies lately, still has the chops to pull it off. But the script won't let him. The story makes him a buffoon, a stereotype - and the same can be said of the rest of his hot headed family.
The cast all do fine work here, they all look right for their parts and deliver the lackluster material with conviction. Additionally the cinematography is quite nice, and there's some impressive camera work here to appreciate. On a technical level, the movie certainly shines. More's the pity then that this winds up like some sort of ineffective mix of Goodfellas and National Lampoon's European Vacation, two movies that are perfectly great in their own right but which should probably never again cross paths like they do here.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The transfer on this AVC encoded 1080p high definition release frames the movie at 2.39.1 widescreen and it looks excellent. As you'd expect, there's no dirt or debris here and detail is generally outstanding. Colors are nicely reproduced and look quite natural most of the time while black levels are solid throughout and contrast is solid. No complaints here, this is an excellent looking transfer from Fox.
The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is also very strong. There are moments of intense surround activity throughout, particularly during the gunfire scenes. There are stretches here without any action that are instead more dialogue and mood based but they too demonstrate some subtle and effective use of the surrounds. The score in particular really benefits from a lot of great depth and directionality. Subtitles are offered in English SDH and Spanish.
Extras are slim, limited to a fairly generic ten minute behind the scenes segment, a minute long montage of the movie's creative use of the F-bomb and a theatrical trailer. There are also the obligatory menu and chapter selection options and as this is a combo pack release we also get a digital copy of the movie and a DVD version of the movie as well. The case comes housed inside a slipcase with identical cover art.
The Final Word:
This one had the potential to be a GREAT movie but the disjointed nature of the script and the way in which the movie bounces between tones means that it never quite finds its voice. The performances are good and there are a few stand out moments here, but most of us expect better from Besson, particularly when he manages to work with a cast as able as the one he works with here. The disc is light on extras but it does look and sound very good.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (272)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2513)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (300)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: February 22nd, 2022.
Director: Gianfranco Parolini
Cast: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance
Year: 1976
Purchase From Amazon
God’s Gun – Movie Review:
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini in 1976, quite late in the spaghetti western boom years, God's Gun (Diamante Lobo in Italy) introduces us to a bad, bad man named Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) who, along with his gang of equally bad, bad men, start wreaking...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:10 PM -
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: October 8th, 2019.
Director: Mario Bava
Cast: Christopher Lee, Reg Park, Leonora Ruffo, Gaia Germani
Year: 1968
Purchase From Amazon
Hercules In The Haunted World – Movie Review:
Directed by Mario Bava in 1961 and featuring a screenplay by Bava (and Sandro Continenza, Francesco Prosperi and Duccio Tessari), Hercules In The Haunted World (also known as Hercules At The Center Of The Earth and...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:08 PM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: April 20th, 2024.
Director: Noburo Nakamura
Cast: Miyuki Kuwano, Mikijiro Hira
Year: 1964
Purchase From Amazon
The Shape Of Night – Movie Review:
Directed by Noburo Nakamura for Shochiko in 1964, ‘The Shape Of Night’ follows a young woman named Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano). In the opening scene, she’s working as a streetwalker on the outskirts of town and soon enough, she’s picked...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:26 AM -
-
Released by: Film Masters
Released on: April 23rd, 2024.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Juli Reding, Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon
Year: 1963
Purchase From Amazon
Tormented – Movie Review:
The late Bert I. Gordon’s 1963 horror film, ‘Tormented,’ is an effectively spooky ghost story made with an obviously low budget but no less effective for it.
The story revolves around a professional piano player...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Grindhouse Releasing
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: William Grefé
Cast: William Shatner, Jennifer Bishop, Ruth Roman, Harold Sakata
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Impulse – Movie Review:
Directed by the one and only William Grefé, 1974’s Impulse is one of those rare films that allows you to witness what it would be like if a really sweaty William Shatner got mad at a lady carrying balloons. Before that...-
Channel: Movies
04-15-2024, 01:20 PM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Andrew Legge
Cast: Emma Appleton, Stefanie Martini, Rory Fleck Byrne
Year: 2022
Purchase From Amazon
Lola – Movie Review:
Irish filmmakers Andrew Legge’s 2022 movie, ‘Lola’, which was made during Covid-19 lockdowns, is a wildly creative movie made in the found footage style that defies expectations, provides plenty of food for thought and manages to make...-
Channel: Movies
04-10-2024, 04:09 PM -