Michelle Pfeiffer is en fuego!
(2013) Comedy (Relativity) Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo, Dominick Lombardozzi, Jimmy Palumbo, Stan Carp, Vincent Pastore, Jon Freda, Michael J. Panichelli Jr., Paul Borghese, Anthony Desio, Ted Arcidi, David Belle, Raymond Frnaza, Christopher Craig, Cedric Zimmerlin, Dominic Chianese, Oisin Stack, Sissi Duparc, Elba Sette-Camara. Directed by Luc Besson
You can choose your friends. Sometimes, you can choose your enemies. You can never choose your family however – and sometimes that might be just as well.
Giovanni Manzoni (De Niro) is an American living in France. Not just an American, however – an American from Brooklyn. And not just an American from Brooklyn – a mob boss from Brooklyn. You see, he ratted on the mob and has been taken into the witness protection program, hauling his none-too-thrilled-about-the-situation family along for the ride.
That ride has taken them from the Riviera to Normandy, shepherded by their very put-upon handler Stansfield (Jones) and his agents Di Cicco (Palumbo) and Caputo (Lombarozzi). Stansfield urges the family, now calling themselves the Blakes, to blend in but they’re having a hard time with it, as usual. Pretty wife Maggie (Pfeiffer) longs for good old American comfort food and when she asks the local grocer where the Peanut Butter is, he disdainfully tells her they don’t carry that sort of thing there, then insults her in French to a couple of old biddy regulars at the cash register, not realizing she speaks French. Maggie doesn’t lose her temper however – she just improvises a bomb and blows up the store.
Pretty daughter Belle (Agron) is sweet as pie, but when a group of French guys drive her to the local park and make it clear that they expect her to put out under the impression that all American girls are sluts, she beats one of them to a bloody pulp with a tennis racket and takes their car. Industrious son Warren (D’Leo) quickly horns in on the black market pill and cigarette market at school, and attracts the ire of the school board while Belle attracts the eye of a callow young teaching assistant named Henri (Stack) to whom she wants to deliver up her virginity on a silver platter.
As for Giovanni, calling himself Fred, he masquerades as a writer which inspires him to write his memoirs which might not be such a good idea considering how much he knows. He also is frustrated with the quality of the town’s water which he traces back to an industrial plant on the edge of town, leading him to take extreme solutions in hand.
All of the Manzonis want nothing more than to go back to Brooklyn and resume the lives they once led but as it turns out Brooklyn is coming to them. Well-armed, as a matter of fact, and none to happy about their situation.
Besson is without a doubt the finest action director/writer/producer in France and his tutelage has turned out several other fine directors in the genre, such as Olivier Megaton. This is a cross between an homage to Martin Scorsese’s mob films (and Scorsese serves as a producer here) and a farce along the lines of Married to the Mob (which Pfeiffer memorably starred in). At times the two genres rest uneasily together but for the most part Besson keeps the balance between the two light.
This is the kind of role that De Niro has done a million times before and there is a familiarity to him playing this kind of character that gives the audience an easy in to the film. He has the good fortune to have Pfeiffer to play off of – the chemistry between the two is note-perfect and they make such a good team it makes me wonder why they were never cast together before (they actually were, in Stardust but shared no scenes together in that one). Pfeiffer is regal here, a mafia princess with a fierce protective instinct, a touch of pyromania and a volcanic temper. She is every bit De Niro’s equal here which is a rare occurrence.
Agron, best-known for her work on Glee has a meaty role here and she sinks her teeth into it with gusto. Belle is a bit of a homicidal maniac under the veneer of a sweet girl next door. Her love for her family is fierce but she, like the rest of her brood, is a more than a little sociopathic and more than a little out-and-out crazy.
There are plenty of action scenes but it is the farce that works best here, the fish out of water scenes that have the ugly Americans trying to make things work with the even uglier French. Sure, there are plenty of stereotypes here (I’m sure there were lots of Italian-American societies cringing at their portrayal here) but it’s all in good fun and not meant to be taken seriously. As entertainment goes, this isn’t half-bad. If you have no plans to catch it in theaters, it might well be a good fit on home video instead.
REASONS TO GO: Wry sense of humor. De Niro, Pfeiffer and Jones are all stellar.
REASONS TO STAY: Kind of cliché. Predictable.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some violence, plenty of bad language and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: At the film society debate attended by Jones and De Niro, the wrong movie is sent and they instead view Goodfellas which De Niro starred in.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/25/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 32% positive reviews. Metacritic: 44/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Analyze This!
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Missing Person
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