For some reason, Luc Besson’s Malavita has been renamed. The Leon director’s upcoming mafia comedy has now been saddled with the rather dull title The Family and production company Relativity Media have dropped the first trailer for the film this week.
Robert De Niro treads familiar territory as a mafioso forced to relocate to a quaint French town with his family. Michelle Pfeiffer stands by her man as his wife. Dianna Agron and Joseph Perrino as their kids round out the troubled family brood.
All of the Manzoni family dally with typical mobster activities in this first trailer. It appears to pick up the thread left dangling at the end of Goodfellas. Just what do mobsters in witness protection get up to? A violent fish-out-of-water comedy, De Niro’s clan are kept in line by Tommy Lee Jones as the witness protection officer. As they cannot help but return to their previous uncouth behaviour, events take a decidedly thuggish turn for the worse.
The script was co-written by director Besson and Michael Caleo, who made his mark in the mob genre for The Sopranos. It is based on the novel by Tonino Benacquista. Dominic Chianese co-stars as Don Mimino, who’ll you also recognise from his role in The Sopranos. Rounding out the mob genre stalwarts is Martin Scorsese in the role of executive producer. How can this film fail with that kind of clout behind it?
In this darkly comedic action film from Luc Besson (Taken, Transporter), The Family is the story of the Manzonis, a notorious mafia family who gets relocated to Normandy, France under the witness protection program. While they do their best to fit in, old habits die hard and they soon find themselves handling things the “family” way.
The Family will open in the U.S. on September 20th and Europe on October 23rd.
