Wordiezett So much average

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Michael Neumann Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick play an unlikely combination of grandfather, father and son in a family held together more by larceny than love. It might be little more than a miscast Hollywood star package gift-wrapped for the holidays, but the otherwise routine caper scenario is given added depth in the script by Vincent Patrick ('The Pope of Greenwich Village'), showing his affection for offbeat New York City characters and allowing a full hour of screen time before the big heist to establish each relationship. Young Broderick idolizes crooked granddad Connery, forcing a reformed Hoffman to reluctantly accompany them on one last job, to protect his overeager, amateur son. The fun and games end when the robbery begins, but under the typically efficient (if unstylish) direction of Sidney Lumet the film never quite sinks to the expected level of melodrama, despite going for the sentimental chokehold in the final scenes.

gcd70 Sydney Lumet's attempt at a criminal-comedy-caper film, ala the forties and fifties, falls very flat very early. Since nothing really happens in this flick, and there's no moral point or purpose, the entire show relies upon the wit of the writer, the talent of the leading actors and the skill of the director to pull it all together. Though no one doubts the collective talents of this all star collaboration, somehow they just don't manage to pull it off.Lumet places a lot of faith, and thus asks a lot of, his three stars. In fact he really leaves it up to them to carry this picture. Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick all try hard and deliver good performances, but sadly they have little to work with in Vincent Patrick's script, based upon his own novel. Try as they might, this trilogy is always struggling to interest you in what's happening to them, and it's hard to feel anything for the McMullens, let alone believe they're related.Script is just not funny enough, and though the 'caper' scene is a highlight, there's little else going for this surprising Lumet let down. In the end we're left with three fine actors and a master director trying to conjure something from nothing. "Family Business" is like a pantomime, but not without words, just without depth or entertainment.Cy Coleman's catchy show tune music belongs in a better picture than this.Monday, February 26, 1996 - Video

bkoganbing Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick have talent to spare and they manage to make an impossible story jell on the screen in Family Business.The three men play grandfather, father, and son of the McMullen clan. Connery is an unregenerate criminal who offers to apologies for the life he's led. Hoffman is someone who went into that life during his youth due to Dad's influence, but he leaves that life and now works in the wholesale meat business which he hates, but more than pays the rent.Matthew Broderick is his son who absolutely idolizes his grandfather. He's middle class and a Westinghouse scholar to boot, but lives for his time with his grandfather and the criminal tales he tells of his past.Broderick's life as a Westinghouse scholar is about to intersect with Connery's habitual criminal background when Broderick's professor, B.D. Wong offers him a scam. He's to break in to a laboratory in Nassau County and steal the results of his research for a million dollars. Hoffman also goes along for the ride, mainly he says to watch out for his son.These three have tremendous chemistry together and it is what makes this story float. Especially Connery because you have to believe in his character in order to enjoy the film.Family Business is one of those movies that after I come away from it I say this is completely ridiculous. Yet when you watch you feel guilty enjoying it so much.Sidney Lumet did a wonderful job showing the background of the Hell's Kitchen area where Connery resides. I recognize a whole lot of the neighborhood. Interesting that this area a decade later served as the background for the much more serious film Sleepers.Look also for a good performance by Rosanna DeSoto as wife and mother to Hoffman and Broderick. What she puts up with in that family.

MovieAddict2016 In this disappointingly recycled, dry and surprisingly unfunny comedy, a tri-generation family of males (Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Matthew Broderick) with problems of their own mix paths in crime. Broderick is the grandson who wants to help his granddad pull off the heist. Hoffman works in-between as the worrier who knows exactly what's going to happen to his son. And it does.Too bad Lumet never stopped to insert any laughs in this dry comedy with a top-notch cast that just barely manages to make it worth watching on television.Just barely.Don't go out of your way for this one.2.5/5 starsJohn Ulmer