Review of The Family (2013) by Jeffrey M — 27 May 2014

The family is the sort of film so wrapped up in its own perceived cleverness, that it never stops to realize its own short-comings. It's familiar, largely unfunny, and predictable. Centered on an American Mafia family forced to relocate to Europe after entering the witness protection program, the film tries desperately to be an off-beat comedy, yet only achieves very sporadic instances of humor. It simply never feels believable, even to itself.

The script is the most glaring problem for the family. It immediately sets out to surprise us with these often unlikable characters, but does it through situational gags, not any sort of characterization. They never feel like real characters, even among themselves. How their family dynamics came to be is never explained, the leading up to their relocation is never really explored, and the motivations of those after them is never fully fleshed out. It is, to be sure, a comedy, with dramatic nuance certainly taking a backseat. But even a comedy requires some sort of authenticity among its characters, some sort of real underpinning, to be really effective. With The Family, it telegraphs where it's gong with no originality, and relies on often cheap gags/gimmicks to propel itself forward, leaving the viewer wholly unimpressed.

This is not to say that the film doesn't do anything right. There are moments of humor, and DeNiro was characteristically reliable. Yet the difference between this film and other mafia comedies that work, Analyze This, is that we're never able to identify with the characters, nor their predicaments.

A misfire.

2/5 Stars.