Hey; if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Family Business

(1989)

Part of the fun of Connery in his late career bloom is watching him parry with his younger co-stars. Sometimes his opponents pull their weight (Ford, Costner), at others they stumble and fall (Harmon, Gere). Seeing him opposite Dustin Hoffman, the effect is less straightforward. It’s not so much that Hoffman is seven years younger yet playing Connery’s son that’s disorientatin (although it does seem like a stretch, particularly since at no point does Dustin ask “Are you sure you’re my dad?”) It’s that you’re conscious of the clash of acting styles, and at no point does the “son” emerge looking like the winner.

Hoffman plays the Sicilian son of the Scottish/Irish Connery (does he ever play otherwise, the occasional Spaniard excepted?) In more recent years Hoffman has been upfront about the randomness of playing Sean’s boy (“That was the silliest piece of casting I ever did”), and how he did it for the money, not the art (you can tell). He’s also intimated that he and Connery may not have had the best of relationships (when someone starts a sentence with “I like Sean, but..” you can tell a volume of information has been left unsaid); Hoffman is notoriously specific about his roles and wants to take the time to get them just so (ask poor Sydney Pollack) whereas, as he puts it, “Sean didn’t like to do more than two takes because he likes golf”. Yet that infuriating exactness is completely at odds with his role as Vito. He’s adrift here, with only the thinnest of hooks to hang his character on. It’s a movie that only makes sense once you have the stars; without it, you wonder why anyone would want to make it.

Which means that the main pleasure is in seeing Connery’s big Jessie effortlessly demolish Hoffman in every scene they share. Even funnier is the sight of Hoffman getting a bit physical with Connery during an outburst. It looks like he's trying to impress the Scot through sheer force of personality but Connery only has to burr something in order to blow him off the screen (and make him look a little silly). Connery knows how to achieve a lot by doing very little. It’s the antithesis of his co-star. (Also notable is his character’s casual racism ["Up yours, you guinea midget!"]; coming hot on the heels of The Untouchables it almost appears as if it’s a regular feature of his comeback period roles.)

Maybe Hoffman was trying to prove something to the sterling Scott about his take on the art of thesping. Maybe he just thought creating a bit of tension would work for the father-son butting of heads. Except Hoffman’s not at home in this role. He never feels as loose or natural as his co-stars, and it’s likely for the reasons noted (alternatively, you might argue he’s just playing the uptight dad and son; whatever the truth of the matter, he’s not at his best). Generally I’m a fan of his work, but if he doesn't have a role that justifies his obsessive approach, he can end up making a meal of everything - as he does here.

If Hoffman’s observation that Connery and Lumet were a good pairing is a little disparaging, it’s also fair. This was the fifth and final collaboration between them and, unfortunately, by some distance the weakest. Lumet had a workhorse ethic with regard to moviemaking, for better or worse, and he churned out a picture a year, year in year out until the ‘90s. His quality control was variable, but he was rarely two movies away from a critical or commercial success. It was only around this period that his judgement began to veer determinedly off the tracks. The Verdict is his last classic, and Q&A (the year after Family Business) his last great movie. What attracted him to Family Business is unclear, but it’s a New York crime movie so the familiar milieu may have held promise.

Vincent Patrick (his only other screenplay is the lacklustre The Devil’s Own) adapted his own novel, about the McMullen family and their flirtations with criminality. The youngest member of the family (Adam; Matthew Broderick), something of a prodigy and a college dropout, brings Jessie his idea for a job, and it isn’t long before Vito (who has forsaken a life of crime for a meat packing business) is reluctantly roped in. When things go wrong, and Adam is arrested, the riffs between Vito and Adam and Vito and Jessie widen.

The script is contrived enough even before the casting director came up with the unlikely grandfather-father-son team. Patrick brings nothing new to the intergenerational feuding and rivalry. The “You were never there for me” and “You never asked me what I wanted” running hang-ups are so clichéd you want to tell them to just stop already. Patrick embarks on a misguided attempt to create a sense of nobility about the McMullen's chosen "profession"; Jessie is disgusted at the immorality of Adam's girlfriend, labelling her a parasite for profiting from the sale of terminal patients' apartments. It's the kind of artificiality that is born of nervousness over whether or not the protagonists will prove sympathetic. The robbery itself is almost incidental, but it’s the most engaging part of the picture. There's a sense that this plot line had more beats to it but they got ironed out, Jessie’s investigation of what really went on occurs mostly off-screen (amounting to a confrontation in a car and an info-dump of exposition) when the DNA research shenanigans actually hold a spark more interest than Lumet perhaps had confidence in.

It’s all down hill from there, unfortunately. Following the rather unconvincing sentencing (from Back to the Future’s Strickland, no less) the last half hour descends into unearned melodramatics and maudlin remonstrations. It doesn’t seem like the right place to take a story that, for all the thesping and conflict, has been fairly lightweight. None of this is helped by Cy Coleman’s inappropriate and listless score, actively working against any drama or suspense; it doesn’t suit anything other than inane ambling.

Broderick holds his own against his peers, although his inexperienced preppy kid, who knows nothing of the mean streets, is something he could do in his sleep. But he’s always been a very natural performer, and the idea that he’s Hoffman’s son is a lot less silly than that of Hoffman/Connery. As he’s drifted into middle age he’s been typecast as the straight-edger, which is a shame; he should get a chance to call on that Bueller charm once in a while. Rosanna DeSoto also deserves a mention as Hoffman’s wife; her naturalism in a bit role is more than the film deserves, particularly with Hoffman hogging the screen with his tics and quirks. Elsewhere, there’s an early appearance from Luis Guzman. The Wire’s Wendell Pierce shows up briefly too, playing a prosecutor.

These sorts of generational ensembles always sound better on paper than they turn out. The same thing happened about a decade later with Brando/De Niro/Norton in The Score. Like that film, you can’t help but find something worthwhile in seeing grand thesps match (or mismatch) each other. But the stronger sense is of a missed opportunity. That said, I would never have expected Connery and Hoffman to star opposite each other anyway; it would have surprised me even more if it had worked.

**1/2

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Whoever comes, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s no guessing he’s back. John Wick’s return is most definite and demonstrable, in a sequel that does what sequels ought in all the right ways, upping the ante while never losing sight of the ingredients that made the original so formidable. John Wick: Chapter 2 finds the minimalist, stripped-back vehicle and character of the first instalment furnished with an elaborate colour palette and even more idiosyncrasies around the fringes, rather like Mad Max in that sense, and director Chad Stahleski (this time without the collaboration of David Leitch, but to no discernible deficit) ensures the action is filled to overflowing, but with an even stronger narrative drive that makes the most of changes of gear, scenery and motivation.

The result is a giddily hilarious, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride (don’t believe The New York Times review: it is not “altogether more solemn” I can only guess Jeannette Catsoulis didn’t revisit the original in the interven…

No time to dilly-dally, Mr Wick.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
(SPOILERS) At one point during John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, our eponymous hero announces he needs “Guns, lots of guns” in a knowing nod to Keanu Reeves’ other non-Bill & Ted franchise. It’s a cute moment, but it also points to the manner in which the picture, enormous fun as it undoubtedly is, is a slight step down for a franchise previously determined to outdo itself, giving way instead to something more self-conscious, less urgent and slightly fractured.

Isn’t Johnnie simply too fantastic for words?

Suspicion (1941)
(SPOILERS) Suspicion found Alfred Hitchcock basking in the warm glow of Rebecca’s Best Picture Oscar victory the previous year (for which he received his first of five Best Director nominations, famously winning none of them). Not only that, another of his films, Foreign Correspondent, had jostled with Rebecca for attention. Suspicion was duly nominated itself, something that seems less unlikely now we’ve returned to as many as ten award nominees annually (numbers wouldn’t be reduced to five until 1945). And still more plausible, in and of itself, than his later and final Best Picture nod, Spellbound. Suspicion has a number of claims to eminent status, not least the casting of Cary Grant, if not quite against type, then playing on his charm as a duplicitous quality, but it ultimately falls at the hurdle of studio-mandated compromise.

She worshipped that pig. And now she's become him.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)
(SPOILERS) Choosing to make The Girl in the Spider’s Web following the failure of the David Fincher film – well, not a failure per se, but like Blade Runner 2049, it simply cost far too much to justify its inevitably limited returns – was a very bizarre decision on MGM’s part. A decision to reboot, with a different cast, having no frame of reference for the rest of the trilogy unless you checked out the Swedish movies (or read the books, but who does that?); someone actually thought this would possibly do well? Evidently the same execs churning out desperately flailing remakes based on their back catalogue of IPs (Ben-Hur, The Magnificent Seven, Death Wish, Tomb Raider); occasionally there’s creative flair amid the dross (Creed, A Star is Born), but otherwise, it’s the most transparently creatively bankrupt studio there is.

I mean, I think anybody who looked at Fred, looked at somebody that they couldn't compare with anybody else.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
(SPOILERS) I did, of course, know who Fred Rogers was, despite being British. Or rather, I knew his sublimely docile greeting song. How? The ‘Burbs, naturally. I was surprised, given the seeming unanimous praise it was receiving (and the boffo doco box office) that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? didn’t garner a Best Documentary Oscar nod, but now I think I can understand why. It’s as immensely likeable as Mr Rogers himself, yet it doesn’t feel very substantial.

I think, I ruminate, I plan.

The Avengers 6.5: Get-A-Way
Another very SF story, and another that recalls earlier stories, in this case 5.5: The See-Through Man, in which Steed states baldly “I don’t believe in invisible men”. He was right in that case, but he’d have to eat his bowler here. Or half of it, anyway. The intrigue of Get-A-Way derives from the question of how it is that Eastern Bloc spies have escaped incarceration, since it isn’t immediately announced that a “magic potion” is responsible. And if that reveal isn’t terribly convincing, Peter Bowles makes the most of his latest guest spot as Steed’s self-appointed nemesis Ezdorf.

Our very strength incites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe.

The MCU Ranked Worst to Best

Do you read Sutter Cane?

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
(SPOILERS) The concluding chapter of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy (preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness) is also, sadly, his last great movie. Indeed, it stands apart in the qualitative wilderness that beset him during the ‘90s (not for want of output). Michael De Luca’s screenplay had been doing the rounds since the ‘80s, even turned down by Carpenter at one point, and it proves ideal fodder for the director, bringing out the best in him. Even cinematographer Gary K Kibbe seems inspired enough to rise to the occasion. It could do without the chugging rawk soundtrack, perhaps, but then, that was increasingly where Carpenter’s interests resided (as opposed to making decent movies).

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog