Family Business

Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick play an unlikely combination of grandfather, father and son in a family held together more by larceny than love. It might be little more than a miscast Hollywood star package gift-wrapped for the holidays, but the otherwise routine caper scenario is given added depth in the script by Vincent Patrick ('The Pope of Greenwich Village'), showing his affection for offbeat New York City characters and allowing a full hour of screen time before the big heist to establish each relationship. Young Broderick idolizes crooked granddad Connery, forcing a reformed Hoffman to reluctantly accompany them on one last job, to protect his overeager, amateur son. The fun and games end when the robbery begins, but under the typically efficient (if unstylish) direction of Sidney Lumet the film never quite sinks to the expected level of melodrama, despite going for the sentimental chokehold in the final scenes.

When I see this film reviewed, over and over, as a comedy, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. This is one of the most brutally cynical, agonizingly tragic films I've ever seen - the story of a family caught up in the romance of crime, trying to help at least the youngest generation escape its inevitable fate.

Perhaps it helps to know Sidney Lumet's other work, especially his previous bitterly brilliant collaborations with Sean Connery: The Hill, and The Offense. Family Business is a similarly scathing attack on preconceptions. Lumet takes what looks like a tame little 'heist comedy' scenario and shows just how poisonously evil it really is. He gives us the charming scoundrel (Connery), and shows how destructive his devil-may-care attitude can be.

One might as well criticize Othello or Macbeth for having no laughs. This film is, in fact, Shakespearian in its tragic dimensions. Connery starts out with the classic Tragic Flaw, and must pay for it in the end. (There is a heroic dimension in his ultimate realization, at least.)

I can easily understand that many people won't enjoy this film. It's a nasty, venomous, painful piece of work. But it's also quite brilliant. If you want easy answers, by all means, rent Ocean's Eleven. But if you're up for a challenge, don't overlook Family Business.

Good acting. I was quite surprised with the end result. Three blockbusters with an excellent supporting cast.

Seeing that this was Connery and Hoffman, billed together with Broderick, I was expecting a real thriller. Ouch! Sitting way out in the audience, even I had to think. This film is a brain-teaser from start to finish, and gently plucks at the emotions. When you rent it, or go to see it, pay attention.

A criminal family, torn between right and wrong? How could this be?

Cute, innocent Victoria Jackson, as Christine, plays Matthew Broderick's, Adam's, fiancée, and is revealed to be someone even lower than this three-generation family of thieves.

Fascinating, ironic, clever, well done . . .

Jessie McMullen (Sean Connery) is a professional thief. His son, Vito (Dustin Hoffman), is a reformed thief who got involved in some theft apart from Jesse when he was a very young man, did time, and has been doing very well in the meat packing business though it is an occupation he hates. He has sworn that his son would get the chance to do what he loves, and so Adam (Matthew Broderick) is on the threshold of getting a master's degree in biology and seems to have a bright future ahead. It seems to be something he is passionate about.

But then Adam just drops out because the future looks all too safe and instead decides he wants the excitement of a burglary that has the potential for a big payout. Adam offers to let both Jessie and Vito in on the deal. Jessie accepts. Vido says no initially, but then decides to go along mainly to protect his son, Adam, because he knows he is completely green about such things. Complications ensue.

I think I understood Jessie and Vito, as to where their characters are coming from. Jessie is a hard guy straight out of The Asphalt Jungle who thinks "crime is just a left handed form of human endeavor" to quote said Asphalt Jungle. Vito just wants a better life for his son than he had. But Adam is a whiny selfish brat who does not appreciate what his father is trying to do for him at all. And he never has an epiphany at any point.

There is an odd situation that the film puts forth - Jessie and his girlfriend as well as Adam and his girlfriend are eating dinner at Vito's house. The girl Adam is dating, played by Victoria Jackson, reveals a way she has of cleaning up on real estate. She has a connection at Sloan Kettering who tells her who the really sick patients are so she can be the first to bid on their apartments since they usually die or are too ill to continue living in their homes. This disgusts Jessie, who has some kind of sideways morality that seems to include that it is not nice to steal from sick people or people who are down, but if they are doing fine stealing from them is AOK. If this is supposed to make me admire Jessie, it really doesn't do it for me.

And that is what this film lacks - somebody - anybody - to root for. You'd never guess going in that a film with Lumet directing and Connery, Hoffman, and Broderick acting would land with such a thud, but you'd guess wrong.

What does it do right? It has some great scenes of working class New York City as it existed around 1990. From the 80s forward, to watch most American films, you'd think everybody in New York City lived in a professionally decorated tony brownstone.

I can't believe the reviews for this!

If anything is open for critcism here, its the casting of Connery, Hoffman and Broderick as grandfather, father and son, but no one seems to mind that. Hoffman's wife is a Jewish woman, played by Rosana DeSoto, who was Richie Valen's mom in "La Bamba" and Edward James Olmos' wife in "Stand And Deliver". All the casting choices are questionable but I think someone along the way decided to be sarcastic about it, which of course makes the movie that much better.

Broderick is not a criminal but his elders are (or were) and he brings them all together to do a robbery. It makes perfect sense, since he's in that family and has their blood. Without even trying hard, he's a product of his environ, just like we all are. Matthew was a whiz-kid who got bored with that and doesn't seem to have any guilt about this caper. His girlfriend (Victoria Jackson) has extremely questionable morals and practically brags about that fact at dinner one afternoon. But is also in keeping with Broderick's character. He's like a wanna-be lowlife.

Hoffman is working in the meat-packing district in the West Village of Manhattan and is trying very hard to do the right thing after having served time and having had an on-again, off-again relationship with both his father and son. He demands honesty and even fires a guy (Luiz Guzman) who is caught stealing from him. The movie is also very realistic from his point-of-view since he gets involved mostly to keep an eye on the other two. Father and son do not get along and always seem to be arguing about one thing or another.

Connery is a life-long trouble maker who was never much of a father but loves his grandson very much and has some pride about their all working together. He argues with his son..father and son do not get along, again.

Some of the dialogue is very funny and there are always great character actors in Sidney Lumet's movies; this one is no exception. In very small parts are Marilyn Cooper, Deborah Rush and Marilyn Sokol. This is in addition to a great trio in the leads, all of whom register great work in this little-seen flick.

Movie has a real NYC feel to it. I'd recommend it to anyone.