Rent The Family (2013)

Pick another! - The Family review by TS

Hugely disappointing, I missed this first time around but remembered the trailer, which was infinitely more entertaining. The only word to describe this movie is 'incredulous'. Wouldn't mind but it was my first film as a member. Things can only get better.

Rubbish - The Family review by JD

You are assumed to find everything that de Nero and Pfeiffer and indeed all Americans do, as forgivable and even to find acts of brutality as amusing and heroic. No work is put into building up the characters into being believable and attractive. So that when these brash Americans move into a small French village it is not forgivable to set fire to the local supermarket because they are bitchy, it is not forgivable to beat the plumber nearly to death for overcharging and it is an overreaction for a girl to attack a boy with a tennis racquet until he is severely maimed for making a pass at her. It is clumsy and unpleasant. I started looking at my watch after 10 minutes. There is no redeeming feature in this pile of rubbish.

Not too bad.. - The Family review by AS

We quite enjoyed the film for what it is, sure it ain't the greatest thing since you know what, but it filled an evening in,fairly well...............The violence did seem a bit over the top but I have seen worse and some of the funnies are really enough to carry the film into its dark comedy label........................I don't tend to look too closely at plots these days and just enjoy a film for its entertainment value, hence the 4 stars.........................

Dreck - The Family review by CP Customer

Don't bother. I second everything the guys above me said. Massively disappointing given who was involved, no real redeeming features at all

Violent, Unbelievable, Grand Guignol, Mob Comedy with Few Laughs - The Family review by PV

This film does what a lot of French and continental movies do, and veers off into surrealism. Not sure if this comes from the original novel (by an Italian) or is the result of the writer/director Luc Besson going for the Grand Guignol uber-violent plot (esp in Act 3) because he can't work out how else to end the movie. And the plot point that leads to Act 3 is just about the most unbelievable one I have ever seen.

Whichever it is, this makes the movie unbelievable, and means the viewer has no sympathy at all for the amoral characters (compare with the wonderful Wolf of Wall Street to see how it is possible to make an amoral key character sympathetic so the audience roots for him).

Still, it's an interesting watch, even if it is a confused film which can't decide if it's a comedy or a mob movie. There are silly subplots aplenty to pad out the film to its overlong length.

The big problem here, however, is the fact that very few members of an audience will be able to suspend disbelief here or sympathise with the amoral and violent, nasty characters. The plot is simply incredible - I simply cannot believe the shtick that despite all the violence and deaths and explosions, this family would be able to move from house to house in France with new identities: it's like a plot from a first year film student, frankly, and with more holes than Swiss cheese!

Worth a watch, but to see some really funny mafia moments, stick to The Sopranos.

2.5 rounded up to 3 for the good acting and some funny scenes.