The Family

Grade: B+

“The Family,” featuring Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Agron and John D’Leo, focuses on a family that had to go into the Witness Protection Program after snitching on the mob. 

They were relocated to a small town in France, and the movie deals with the mob trying to find Fred Manzoni (De Niro), the father of the family, and kill him.

This was the first mob movie I have ever seen, so after being uncertain of what I was going to watch I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was actually very surprised at how much I liked it. I am usually not interested at all by action movies.

There is a lot of violence; a few scenes even caught me off guard. As always with every action movie, there is a ridiculous amount of explosions. This movie included exploding houses and grocery stores.

It is a fast-paced movie, and has very few dull moments. However, to keep it fast paced there were several added scenes that were unnecessary. There was a situation where suicide was brought into the picture, and it came out of nowhere without any rhyme or reason behind it.

There are certain parts in the movie where the plot is confusing, and I feel like there are some situations that happened where you honestly aren’t sure if it was a dream Fred, the main character, was having, or if it was a situation that really happened. 

The movie had a very stereotypical, predictable end. The entire plot of the movie could have been guessed within the first few minutes of it starting.

The cast did a good job embodying their roles, and I don’t know how Diana Agron is still managing to play young teenagers so well. 

The acting was very good, and there were multiple occasions in the movie where you could have imagined them to be a real family dealing with problems in the mob. Agron was also very surprising with her role, appearing to be the sweet girl next door while honestly very feisty and able to take care of herself.

Much like many other movies, there was a very unnecessary love story in the movie. One thing I do not understand about movies is why there always has to be a love story. Not every movie requires a love story. 

Overall, I do recommend “The Family” to others, and I would watch it again myself once it comes out on DVD.