Holly Buchanan Feature Editor
Luc Besson, director of Taken and Transporter, puts together a comedy-drama that’s less than impressive. 
Making up The Family, is Maggie the wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), Fred the husband (Robert De Niro), Belle Blake, daughter (Dianna Agron), and Warren Blake, son (John D’leo). Also starring Tommy Lee Jones as the CIA agent who’s job is to keep this family in line and remain unseen from the mob, who wants to kill them.
Moving the family to a location in France to keep them safe proves difficult when they keep going back to their old ways with the public in France. The center comedic piece of this movie is how violent the seemingly innocent family actually is. After you get over that aspect nothing else is funny.
The movie is a comedy for the first half and a drama for the rest. Each actor portrays their character well enough to leave the audience with a sense of acknowledgement to these people personally.
Something I wasn’t impressed with was Michelle Pfeiffer’s lacking ability to hold a Boston accent, and the rest of the family never showing one at all. This would make sense if it was because they were trying to be less conspicuous of where they came from but proving that false is the fact that none of the mob characters had one either.
This movie doesn’t even come close to following in the aesthetic appeal of gangster movies like The Departed or The Godfather. The setting of France however makes every seen visually stimulating to someone who’s never been there.
The ending of this movie doesn’t leave one feeling depressed or inspired, but it has a happy ending that seems unrealistic and too good to be true.
