The Family - Fun for all the family (the on-screen one, anyway)

Or at least those who like kicking the hell out of you if you happen to annoy them. Yes, Robert DeNiro plays a mob boss (who’d have thought that?!), but this time one who has turned on his former life (and more importantly colleagues) and is now living – with his family, obviously – in sunny France. However, his former gangsters decide to hunt him down and now the family faces more than just surly French supermarket owners.

‘The Family’ has come in for a fair amount of criticism. Yes, it has a stellar cast (and director – Luc Besson), so perhaps expectations were a tad too high for this. And, sure, it’s no ‘Goodfellars’ (despite DeNiro actually watching Goodfellars during the film itself!), but it’s not that bad either.

DeNiro carries the film (naturally), but Michelle Pfeiffer plays her part, too. As do the kids and Tommy Lee Jones (as the poor agent assigned with the task of protecting this family of criminals). The major flaw people seem to be finding with this film is that most of the characters are pretty unlikable. Yes, they’re criminals and tend to beat the hell out of people for things that most of us would just shrug off with an expression of mild annoyance. But, these people aren’t your next door neighbours, they exist purely on-screen. Hence you only have to spend just under two hours with them.

Ultimately, it’s no classic, but if you’re a fan of DeNiro and you don’t have great expectations that it’s going to be another classic, then you should enjoy it enough. Although you may not feel that compelled to watch it again for a while.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one