The Family Reviews
ABC News Radio
Well, if you're going to continue to exploit a tired Mafia stereotype, you might as well do it with the best.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Top CriticThere are some great moments sprinkled throughout. But overall, these elements never seem to come together in the same harmonious way that this family does with each other.
We Got This Covered
A misfire from start to finish, The Family is unfunny, plodding and kind of depressing. Can someone take a hit out on it, please?
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/10
A love letter to Scorsese constructed with all the grace of Mr. Bean.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5.1/10
American Profile
A strange mash-up of a vicious mob yarn squeezed into a foul-mouthed, movie-length sitcom.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Willamette Week
Quite literally self-parody--only without the self-awareness of Analyze This.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Suburban Journals of St. Louis
Not that I'm opposed to some good ol' shoot-em-up violence, it's just hard to get your bearings as 'The Family' shifts frantically back and forth between giggles and gasps.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
ComingSoon.net
The Family is filled with Besson's signature visual wit, boasting occasionally sharp satire aimed equally at both sides of the Atlantic, but he lets us down in the end through the deadly combination of broad characters and a rambling narrative.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6.5/10
Slant Magazine
A film whose only distinguishing characteristic is how big a mess it makes of its already meager ambitions.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
The Blakes think they're vigilantes, but in most other movies they'd be the bad guys.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Director Luc Besson knows violence -- comedy? Not so much.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
JoBlo's Movie Emporium
Predictable, dull and chaotic, THE FAMILY is one of the least funny comedies of the year.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/10
Curiously airless, weightless and tonally uncertain, Luc Besson's mafia comedy falls flat.
COED.com
Remember the octopus that always picked the winners of soccer games? That's what Robert De Niro is, only his talent is always managing to choose horrible scripts.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
ScreenCrush
It is no easier for me to report this than it is for you to hear it, but we're all adults and let's get real: Robert De Niro's name on a film project is now more a red flag of warning than a sign of quality.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/10
Movie Chambers
An above-average cast can't save this mob comedy from French director Luc Besson.
Full Review
| Original Score: D
honeycuttshollywood.com
Luc Besson has based his international movie career on slick action, noise and bombast - not comedy.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4
amNewYork
The movie repeats the same basic humorous conceit ad nauseam: The "Blakes" violently overreact to things, setting fire to grocery stores and more.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Bizarrely, Besson ... tries to shift from making fun of the main characters to sentimentalizing them.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/4
The Family is a film at once strange and intriguing. It can't seem to settle on a tone.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
