The Family
Relativity Media | Release Date: September 13, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
14
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleySep 13, 2013
A pretty uneven film, lurching from comedy to violence to sentiment, but it's best when it sticks in the realm of flat-out farce. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperSep 12, 2013
This is a deliberately off-kilter, cheerfully violent, hit-and-miss effort with just enough moments of inspiration to warrant a recommendation — especially if you know what you’re getting into. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 12, 2013
This isn't vintage De Niro but at least there's more substance here than in a lot of his other recent projects. Michelle Pfeiffer, who flirted with this sort of a role 25 years ago in "Married to the Mob," is enjoying something of a renaissance after working only sparingly for more than a decade. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughSep 12, 2013
Not known for subtlety, Besson gets the expected laughs, and then some. He also exercises an unwonted finesse, not only with the allusions, but also with variations on the “f” word that, if not poetic, are at least funny. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezSep 12, 2013
The Family is the rare breed of pitch-black comedy that effectively uses violence for laughs or gasps, depending on the situation. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyAdam MarkovitzSep 12, 2013
Doesn't just wink at De Niro's history, it leans on it, hard. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskySep 12, 2013
It’s at its best in the brief moments when Besson plunges into complete, comic-book-panel unreality, as in an early shot where a hitman in a black trenchcoat, black trilby hat, and black gloves emerges silencer-first from behind a wall of smoke. It's the rare occasion when you might wish a director were more over-indulgent. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandSep 13, 2013
The Family is a film at once strange and intriguing. It can't seem to settle on a tone. The early eruptions of violence are treated as slapstick when they are most assuredly not. But the climactic showdown, which fairly cries out for a touch of humor, is played as a tense and grim action sequence. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenSep 12, 2013
A messy brew that is a bit too slack to get all the way to actually being good. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenSep 12, 2013
The movie has holes galore. It has abrupt tonal shifts, an incoherent back story and abandoned subplots. It doesn’t even try for basic credibility. But buoyed by hot performances, it sustains a zapping electrical energy. Read full review
60
Village VoiceSherrie LiSep 12, 2013
You can be chuckling one minute then cowering and cringing the next, which tinges the humor with apprehension and taints the brutality with absurdity. That isn't to say that the combo doesn't work at all. Read full review
51
Film.comMatt PatchesSep 12, 2013
It’s a sadistic comedy, both in bloodshed and groan-worthy gags. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberSep 12, 2013
Their inside jape is unfortunately not as much fun for the audience as it may have been for the filmmakers, though it does have its piquant moments. But it’s not consistently entertaining enough either as a spoof or as a thriller. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 12, 2013
Robert De Niro – wait for it – in the role of a mobster. Now there's an original idea. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigSep 12, 2013
The Family is a fish-out-of-water/buddy comedy/Mob flick. But most of all, it's a missed opportunity. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreSep 12, 2013
Besson aims his movie at anyone who’s ever held a grudge at an ill-mannered French waiter or clerk (haughty, and by the way, they’d NEVER condescend to speak to you in English). If that includes you, The Family has serves up a little wish-fulfillment payback, with a baseball bat. Read full review
40
Total FilmNeil SmithNov 21, 2013
Though it’s good to see Michelle Pfeiffer married to the mob again, she alone can’t redeem a lumbering farce that takes an unpleasantly sadistic glee in violence, murder and intimidation. Read full review
40
EmpireNick de SemlyenNov 19, 2013
Another to airbrush out of the De Niro back catalogue. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 15, 2013
But Besson — by no means a bad filmmaker — has gotten rich off that kind of violence that upsets no one, least of all jaded international action audiences. He tries to have it both ways and fails some of cinema’s most precious resources. Read full review
40
VarietyAndrew BarkerSep 12, 2013
Curiously airless, weightless and tonally uncertain, the picture mixes mass murder, dismemberment and rape threats with sappy sentimentality, fish-out-of-water gags and groan-worthy meta-humor, yet very little of it manages to leave any impression. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelSep 12, 2013
Yes, The Family has skills. They’re like “The Incredibles” — except they’re heroes for sadists and sociopaths only. Read full review
40
The DissolveNathan RabinSep 12, 2013
The film is curiously joyless and inert. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisSep 18, 2013
It dispassionately plays like a video game with a high body count. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithSep 30, 2013
Remember when Robert De Niro was an interesting actor? These days his talent, like his character in The Family, is in the witness protection program, never to be seen again. Read full review
25
Washington PostStephanie MerrySep 13, 2013
After the movie limps along for an hour and a half, Besson suddenly switches gears and does what he does best. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam NaymanSep 12, 2013
There isn’t a single genuinely sharp sequence in the entire movie. The casting of Robert De Niro as an ex-Mafioso hiding in witness protection is witty in only the silliest, most superficial way. It’s a joke with its own tinny, built-in laugh track. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoSep 12, 2013
A film whose only distinguishing characteristic is how big a mess it makes of its already meager ambitions. Read full review
25
The PlaylistGabe ToroSep 12, 2013
The Family is ultimately a headache, nearly two hours of baseball bat beatings and dull witticisms, with zero inventiveness or energy. Read full review
20
The GuardianCatherine ShoardNov 21, 2013
Robert De Niro does further damage to a reputation much battered by "The Big Wedding." Read full review
20
Time Out LondonAshley ClarkNov 19, 2013
The film’s sole saving grace is Tommy Lee Jones’s amusingly cranky FBI agent, but he can’t save this ship from sinking. Read full review
20
Time OutNick SchagerSep 13, 2013
Director Luc Besson treats his protagonists as likable cartoons yet never provides a single reason to view them as anything less than remorseless, repugnant psychos. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierSep 12, 2013
It’s too bad we can’t take a hit out on The Family. This unexciting, unfunny would-be action satire is filled with Italian-American stereotypes, decades-old TV-style Mafia cliches, bits of business that never amount to anything and actors so much better than the hoary, one-joke material. Read full review
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