Family Business (1989)

This intriguing mixture of crime caper with family melodrama from director Sidney Lumet is one of the New York auteur's most underrated films, a delightful blend of character development, funny dialogue, and an absorbing story. Unfortunately, the film is hampered badly by two chronic and greatly debilitating problems that it never overcomes. The first is the film's puzzling, wildly inappropriate score. The true story behind the soundtrack's creation and employment must be a fascinating one, so utterly wrong in tone, style, and usage is it for the material. More than a handful of wonderfully written, acted, and shot scenes in the film are sabotaged by the dippy, simple-minded tunes that overwhelm everything in their trite path. If Jaws (1976) is one of the best examples of how much a great, coherent score can add to a film, then this is one of the finest examples of how bad compositions can ruin one. Then there's the less annoying but still problematic situation inherent in the film's casting; quite simply, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick look absolutely nothing alike and couldn't pass for distant cousins much less three generations in one family. Lumet tries hard to explain the disparity with lots of cutesy side commentary about the family's crazy quilt of mixed ethnicity. Admittedly, it's a device that relates with clever symbolism to the genetic object of the family's theft scheme. It also soaks up a lot of the film's first act and feels after it's brought up for the umpteenth time like desperate posturing, an overly self-conscious effort to explain some dream casting. Family Business (1989) is a film that so nearly succeeds, it's painful to watch. A John Williams score and a few lines about adoption would have solved this film's problems and left viewers with a memorable, entertaining minor classic. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide