The Blake family has moved to a small town in France, but thier big secret is they are a Mafia family hiding out in Witness Protection. Fred Blake, the head of the family, is writing his memoirs while his teenage daughter and son try to fit in at school and his wife Maggie blows up the local grocery store. Add to various problems, Fred tries to find out why the town water is brown and FBI agent Warren Stansfield is trying to keep an eye on him, It isn't an easy job as the Mafia seems to catch up with the Blake family move after move. Fred's son Warren gets involved in various illegal enterprises at school and his daughter Belle takes lessons from the math tutor because she has the hots for him. Soon a series of events may lead trouble to be coming to the small town in Normandy.

THE FAMILY is a weak effort from director Luc Besson who co-wrote the script with two other writers and based on the novel Malavita. It ends up being a mess with various tonal shifts that THE FAMILY feels like a movie with a multiple personality. It wants to be a fish out of water tale before it decides it wants to be a movie about a Mafia man who is trying to write his life and fit in (which he ends up being invited to a film screening of a certain movie (directed by Martin Scorcese). Then you have various action beats. In the end, THE FAMILY is a dark action comedy that doesn't quite work. Then you have stereotypes abound as the film is filtered through the eyes of the French on what they think about Americans and what Americans think of the French. The actors involved have been in better movies (and I wonder if Tommy Lee Jones got his directing gig for another movie with EuropaCorp because he decided to act in this one). Luc Besson has written and even directed better movies like THE FIFTH ELEMENT and LEON THE PROFESSIONAL. THE FAMILY ends up as a film you should just rent or catch on TV.

This DVD review is (c9-18-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

Like Enterline Media on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/enterlinemediaweb and follow on tumblr at http://enterlinemedia.tumblr.com