Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer star in Luc Besson's "The Family"

Robert De Niro can deliver the word “fuck” in a dozen different contexts and still accurately convey the emotion of the scene. As an aging mafia member, De Niro adeptly assumes his role as Giovanni Manzoni in “The Family,” a Luc Besson film about an unlikely family’s relocation to northern France as a part of the witness protection program. Though the premise is entirely implausible, the movie manages—almost effortlessly—to be both comic and gruesome. Mainly due to the practiced acting of older stars like De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones, the somewhat banal script passes as hilarious at its best moments, but reveals itself as ridiculous in moments of weaker acting.

The newly renamed and displaced “Blake” family find themselves without a jar of American peanut butter in Normandy at the start of the film. They must try to fit their homicidal, violent tendencies into a quaint, French countryside or risk being discovered and murdered by the members of the mafia that Manzoni (De Niro) betrayed in order to keep himself out of jail. Their first few days are fraught with violence: Maggie (Pfeiffer) sets fire to the local grocery store in a moment of vindication, and the daughter Belle—played by an unsmiling Dianna Agron of “Glee” renown—savagely beats up a group of boys with a badminton racquet.

Though hilarious, these exaggerated scenes of violence are not always backed up by character development. Pfeiffer is compelling on screen as a rule, but the harmless conversation she overhears in the grocery store—in which stereotypically snotty French natives discuss how fat and ignorant all Americans must be—hardly seems fuel enough for Maggie to set the place on fire. Likewise, Belle’s sudden violent outburst with a badminton racquet comes across as pointless and random. This might also be a result of Agron’s lack of facial expression throughout the movie, which makes her seem like an incomprehensibly troubled teen, more disturbing than likeably messed up.

But the rest of the family does manage to play their characters as both amiable and sadistic, which is a saving grace for the often-ridiculous script. Pfieffer portrays Maggie tenderly following her initial outburst—she mistakenly confesses to a Catholic priest, expecting to be met with forgiveness, and is touchingly shocked when the jolly French priest casts her out of the church as an incarnation of the devil. De Niro, on the other hand, makes for a convincing mafia leader, complete with a heavy Brooklyn accent and apparently limited vocabulary. But De Niro’s portrayal of Giovanni does not lack a sense of background, and as the character attempts to write his memoirs, a genial side of the killer emerges. If not humane, De Niro’s character is at least good-humored; in a tender moment for the character, Giovanni confides in the FBI agent responsible for keeping him safe (Jones). Giovanni calls their relationship a “friendship,” to the other’s surprise. Hastily correcting his definition, De Niro points out that he killed all of his friends by betraying them to the FBI.

Perhaps the most touching part of the script—and one that was made better by solid acting—was the subplot of Giovanni’s son stepping into his father’s shoes. Attempting to enter a family business of which the product is murder and coercion, young Warren (John D’Leo) seems to be a copy of his father: cunning and manipulative with an irresistibly likable side. He even shares a physical resemblance to his father, with a mole on his cheek opposite Giovanni’s mole. As Warren learns to abuse the social structure of his high school, he manages to find himself in front of the school’s disciplinary board. Before scramming from the scene of his crimes, D’Leo charismatically says, “I want to speak with my lawyer,” and decides to run away to Paris to start living the life of a true mobster.

The essence of this particular family—their quirky violence and their sneaky coercion—holds strong throughout the film, with the legacy passing from father to son and the theme of relocation coming full circle. For the most part the film is enjoyably ridiculous with occasional bursts of honest character development, but the actors must do a lot of work to save it from coming off as simply a preposterous premise.

—Staff writer Virginia R. Marshall can be reached at virginia.marshall@thecrimson.com.