The Family

This tries with mixed success to mingle comedy with over-the-top violence. Robert De Niro and wife Michelle Pfeiffer are a mob family with two teenage kids who have been relocated from Brooklyn to a small town in Normandy. This is far from their first move, as Dad has a lot of trouble with getting violent if someone “disrespects” him. For that matter, Mom and the kids are the same way. Mom blows up a grocery store when she overhears some nasty French people making fun of her and all Americans. The daughter, the gorgeous Dianna Agron (from “Glee,” which I’ve never seen, and who is actually twenty-seven) uses a tennis racket to almost kill a stupid French boy who comes on to her inappropriately. The son soon controls all the rackets at his school … where everybody speaks English. That was not my experience of France. In fact, many French would rather die that admit they understand a single English word. Would have made a lot more sense if they were in Italy, where they might be expected to have some feel for the language. It’s pretty funny, in a brutal sort of way, with Tommy Lee Jones as the federal agent who has the thankless job of keeping them in line. But the last half hour, when the mobsters find them, is just plain gruesome. I thought it was a bit too much.