It's not every month, hell, it's not every year when we get the trailer to a new Michelle Pfeiffer movie so naturally we have to talk about Malavita again. Or, I guess, The Family as it's been rechristened before release. It's always a pity when a movie ditches a really specific title for one that could work for thousands of movies and thus stakes no claim on personality whatsoever.
Perhaps the trailer itself has personality. Let's watch and discuss.
[watches]
Okay. Only watch that if you're the kind of person who doesn't care about spoilers. IF you are this kind of person i envy you because the movie studios don't care about them either - they love shovin' them into trailers. I get the sense you're basically seeing the whole movie here. But we gotta break it down anyway as we do because...
LA PFEIFFER IS BACK
YES
- Michelle Pfeiffer saying "merci"
- This might be funny. It's kinda tough to tell in the trailer because so much of comedy depends on good editing and trailers never have a sense of that since they're cutting entirely different scenes and dialogue together for their specific 2 minute effect
- The return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Married to the Mob accent "we're not in Brooklyn anymore"
- Michelle Pfeiffer driving that car with those sunglasses
- Tommy Lee Jones has been on a real roll lately. Does this end the party or continue it?
- and Michelle Pfeiffer as fire starter. Bring it bitch.
NO
- After Silver Linings Playbook, I'd like to believe that Robert DeNiro is back to acting rather than cashing in but a mob comedy is probably not the place to believe that.
- Whenever trailers show this much of the wink-wink laughs and action, I worry about "those are all the best parts" and there's a lot of ways in which this might be super offensive (xenophobia, "hurting people is hilarious!" immaturity and so on) rather than funny.
MAYBE SO
- Luc Besson, in the director's seat, isn't totally reliable.
- The casting of the kids looks great visually but Dianna Agron coasts a lot on her looks and when you're playing Pfeiffer's daughter... well, she better take it up a notch. Pfeiffer never did that and good lord she could have coasted for decades with the ones she got.
- Also: Can you believe my restraint that I only used one photo of Pfeiffer to illustrate this?
Here's the trailer if you don't mind spoilers.
Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?