The Family

Jean, I walked into the theater thinking I was going to see a comedy. This had some comedy touches like De Niro going to a movie showing of "Goodfellas" and other touches along the way. But the violence is what I saw. That is, shooting a man and then chopping off all his fingers with an ax. The sound of the crunching of the bones included. Or hanging a man by his feet and then lowering him into a barrel of acid. Or beating nearly to death a man with a baseball bat and then doing just about the same with a tennis racket. The director, Luc Besson, is fine with the violence but with the humor, not so much. He has a fine cast of De Niro, Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones but they bought into quite a violent and bloody script. The movie moves to a very violent climax in the small French town in Normandy, bringing together all the family members and their former friends in the Brooklyn Mafia. Every type of weapon is used and the body count goes over 10 or 12. Besson handles that scene in a very effective manner .It has to be one of best of any  year in it's category, but all the underlying violence and killing just put me off and it hits you in the face in the first scene.(None of this was in the previews I saw of this movie.)

 

Dad

 

P.S. I have not seen Michelle Pfeiffer in some time. It is quite evident she is in the same school of nourishment as Kelly Ripa. The thinking is you have to be able to count every rib of the person.

 

P.P.S. The previews were:

 

Don Jon

Out of the Furnace

Dallas Buyers Club

Inside  Llewyn Davis

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