Tuesday 16 October 2018

The Family (2013 Luc Besson & co-scr)

This was billed as a 'comedy-drama'. It's not a comedy, and it's a long way away from Leon (though that film had its share of absurdities, it at least had heart). In this, we clearly don't care a fuck for Robert de Niro, as he's a self-deluded sadistic bastard and killer, who ends up causing all his family (Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianna Agron and John D'Leo) to become killers themselves. It seems to relish in the violence in an unpalatable way - difficult to put into words - unlike a Tarantino, somehow... (Hospitalising the plumber, for example, doesn't add anything to the story.)

Although it's entirely implausible, we liked the way the French newspaper gets to the crime boss in prison; and also Agron's way of dealing with unwanted sexual attention with a tennis racket. And has a certain imaginative flow between scenes.

With Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Lombardozzi, Vincent Pastore and other Sopranos alumni. Based on a novel by French crime writer Tonino Benacquista. Shot by Thierry Arbogast in Panavision.

Everyone speaks English, and shopping is charged in francs...? In-joke?

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