Tonight DCM and I went to see the family, once we saw the preview we knew we needed to see this movie, it had all the elements, gangsters, explosions, intimidation, guns, family, Robert De Niro , Michelle Pfieffer and Tommy Lee Jones.
It was written and directed by Luc Besson, which I didn’t know until they rolled the credits, but it made things fall into place after that. Luc Besson is best known for The Fifth Element [I need to review this, I could go on for hours!], The Messenger, The Transporter [OMG! IMDB.com is showing Transporter 4, 5, 6, WHAT? well, as long as Jason Statham is in it, I’m good with that, right ladies?].
I have to admit that we both walked away from this movie kind of adrift. It was ok, but it wasn’t that good, the trailers really had the best parts in it.
The family was in interesting dynamic. Dad, who was the former head of the family who testified against the family and has been on the run in the witness protection program for about ten years. The reason they are on the run is that something always happens, they kill someone, blow something up, potentially blow their cover. I say they because the entire family is suited for this lifestyle.
It was kind of fun, well, there were aspects of fun to De Niro’s character’s handle when he was aggravated or crossed, he took some things to extreme measures, others to extreme and final measures and then the fun ones were when he got angry and imagined what he would do those who offended.
Michelle Pfeiffer plays the mom, and she will put up with only so much before she might blow up a building [not a spoiler, it’s in the preview]. Diana Argon, Quinn from Glee is the daughter, a 17 year old who finds love, but has a serious problem with anger management, WOW! She gets her heart broken, but doesn’t actually cry until she kills some hit men, interesting. More interesting, she was wearing a white dress and pearls, so put together wielding firearms and killing the bad guys after her family.
John D’Leo is the son and he is the stereotypical mobsters kid, like you’ve seen in the movies. He goes to school the first day and gets the lay of the land, so to speak, he knows who is who and who is what and what he would need to do to get by and ahead. A little bit con artist, extortionist, enforcer, he runs away from home at one point because he was afraid the FBI would blame the family for his indiscretions.
Tommy Lee Jones is the FBI agent in charge of keeping the family alive because the entire organized crime syndicate wants them dead, you can tell he’s a little tired of the job, especially when they keep moving around ever nine months!
There were some good scenes in the beginning, a few in the middle and then there was action at the end. As I mentioned, it was ok, just not that great. I can tell you we liked it, but won’t be adding it to the collection.
Oh, and the dog lived! you know that’s all I really cared about!
Peaches Prattlings 