Critical response On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 28% based on 136 reviews, with an average rating is 4.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Luc Besson's
The Family suffers from an overly familiar setup and a number of jarring tonal shifts."
Metacritic, which uses a
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on a scale of A+ to F.
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky from
The A.V. Club gave the film a B− and said, "Besson creates the impression that
The Family is set in a world drawn from gangster movies and comic strips—an idea that culminates in De Niro participating, as the town's token American, in a film club discussion of
a certain Martin Scorsese movie."
Stephenie Merry of
The Washington Post gave the film one star out of four, stating, "There's little to laugh about in the dark comedy
The Family." Nick Schager of
Time Out gave the film one star of five, saying that Besson "treats his protagonists as likable cartoons yet never provides a single reason to view them as anything less than remorseless, repugnant psychos".
MSN Entertainment gave the film three stars out of five, saying, "Sharper, smarter and slicker than it looks, there's a lot to like about
The Family." Linda Barnard from
The Toronto Star gave the film two stars out of four, saying, "While Besson knows his way around an action film, he's not as adept at comedy. The result is an often-violent, occasionally amusing fish-out-of-eau tale that plunks a family of wise guys in the French countryside with predictable results." Mack Rawden of
CinemaBlend gave the film three stars out of five, saying, "It uses irregular De Niro voiceovers on occasion. It reads segments of a book on occasion. It even uses bad dreams and flashbacks, all of which, when used together, make the film seem disorganized and poorly put together. All of that, coupled with more than a few jokes that fall flat and a plot that's windy and strangely paced keep
The Family from being anything more than a likeable enough way to spend an hour and forty-five minutes."
Stephen Holden of
The New York Times summed up the mixed reaction to the film: "The movie has holes galore. It has abrupt tonal shifts, an incoherent back story and abandoned subplots.... But buoyed by hot performances, it sustains a zapping electrical energy." Although the film did not generate many positive reviews, the cast was praised by critics.
THV11 said, "The core actors of
The Family were really solid and the whole film comes together to make a solid movie."
The Huffington Post said that "De Niro, Pfeiffer and Jones all brought 100% to their roles.
Glee actress
Dianna Agron was the stand-out here, shining as the daughter who was falling in love for the first time, while defending her family from total annihilation by the mafia." The film was nominated for one award: the
Women Film Critics Circle Awards Best Young Actress for Agron.
Box office The Family debuted at number two in its first weekend, with $14 million, coming in behind
Insidious: Chapter 2, which made $40.3 million in its opening weekend. ==References==