The Family (2013) Both Surprising and Wickedly Funny

The Family (2013) Relativity Media

Last night my lady and I wanted to see something light-hearted or action oriented so we decided to rent The Family from Redbox. When I first saw that there was another Robert De Niro film out, my first thought was “not again.” He has been in far too much stuff in his later years and it is getting hard to watch if you have ever seen his greatness in other films like The Godfather: Part II (1972), Goodfellas (1990), Raging Bull (1980), and Taxi Driver (1976). Any two of those films would’ve put him in the hall of fame of acting forever and he has all four. He is a legend and is deserving of the title, so I was hoping during the first 10 minutes of the film that this would not be like some of the bad films he’s been in recently (Machete, Stardust, All the Fockers movies). It did not disappoint. It was cheerfully dark, and disconcertingly funny.

The Family was an action-comedy directed by Luc Besson who is famous for making Leon: The Professional (1994) which is a solid film, but nothing like a comedy such as this. Leon was a great film, but the themes were much different.

I must admit that this film was not De Niro’s usual gig when he plays an Italian guy. His character Giovanni Manzoni which is one of the first mob informants that was willing to testify against their own family and live. Of course he is a tough guy that doesn’t like to be disrespected, but if you didn’t expect that then you’ve never seen his other films. He plays the perfect Italian mobster in a transitional time in his life. The FBI (should’ve been the marshals if it were being factual) has been taking care of him in a version of the WITSEC program in hopes to save the life of him and his family from mob assassins. The family members are all just as devious and mob-like as Giovanni is.

One the best touches of this film is the relationship the kids have with each other and the world. Both are extremely intelligent when it comes to social aspects and seem to have a grasp on people’s pressure points. They run the school like a prison yard in under a day of living there. They make friends with the right people and they are able to take control of the bullies and the black markets of the school.

Coming from a large school in a major city I can attest to something like this being a major concern. Moving to another school can be difficult because fitting into the right group can be everything. If you are ever in need of certain supplies or certain people, it may be important to be in contact with the people ‘who can get things’ at school as our young characters prove it to be useful.

The family has a large set of amazing scenes that are never in need of CGI or Hollywood dialogue. The movie itself was based off a book called “Malavita” which translates to “Bad Life” in Italian. The name also happens to be the name of the dog.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie is when De Niro is invited to a communal movie review. They lose the movie they were going to review and end up watching Goodfellas instead. De Niro stars in the film they are watching and ends up giving commentary about the film and the life of a gangster in America.

Overall, I would recommend this movie.