The Family (8/10)

It's been a long while since I last saw a black comedy, and The Family was definitely a very good one. The last one that was great was Burn After Reading. This wasn't as great but it was close.

I had no idea what the movie was about so going in was really refreshing. I learned each character the way the director wanted me to learn. I didn't know who or what this family was about at all before going in, and had no idea what was going on the first quarter of the movie so I was really focused on the story.

Other than Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer who were solid, Dianna Agron and John D'Leo were adequately impressive as well playing their very "talented" children. I thought this was a great opportunity for Agron to break away from her Glee character. And I have never seen D'Leo but I was also equally impressed.

Under the very capable hands of Luc Besson, who also wrote this, I loved how he had the necessary character developments for each one of the family members. Especially for Agron's character who had a wide range of emotions.

I have forgotten Besson's stylistic approach in creating scenes. This one also reminded me a little of John Woo whose action scenes are known for being stylised when there were guns involved. Not only that, the action were also adequately satisfying for a movie that's not action-oriented.

So I walked out very satisfied with a movie that I didn't know anything about and had no expectation.