Family [DVD]

I was happy to see the recent release of this series as I am a fan of Simone Lahbib and this sounded like a good vehicle for her. Unfortunately, she has a very minor role that may have been expanded had the series survived. The performances are good, but the story line needed to be tightened up. Also, the dialogue suffered because it was so difficult to hear over all the background noise. I know that the mumbling effect is often used to emphasize the lack of diction by some characters, but it can be overdone to the point that the audience misses a good deal of the dialogue. While this was a rather run of the mill production, I still would recommend it to those who appreciate the crime family genre. I blame none of the actors for the flaws. It just needed better writing and a more insightful director to chart its course.

-Spoilers-

An utterly dire attempt to "do" The Sopranos in London's East End. It's a shame that a clutch of such good actors wasted their efforts on this bag of spew.

For about the first 45 minutes of episode 1 it was pretty good. The Cutler family are London gangsters, feared and respected in their "manor" and they set their sights on a getting shares in a Docklands restaurant that has a 2 year waiting list for a table. However they have a "UK Riots 2011" mentality to getting what they want, i.e. they hire thugs to turn the place over and then "persuade" the owner to let them become 40% partners. The casual threats made by the Cutler family to Rory McLeod owner of the restaurant are wonderfully underplayed. With silky charm and strategic violence they get their way. The plot then Jumps the Shark (rare to do it in the first episode!) when the returned prodigal son casually murders the restaurant manager during an argument over using his mobile phone (to put it in perspective it is made quite clear the restaurant is a). Famous and b). Popular and this act would be the equivalent of someone being murdered in one of Gordon Ramsay's eateries).

The reactions of the Cutler family to the crisis are understandable and coldly efficient but it's the lack of conscience on anybody's part to what happened that is wholly unrealistic. These are not Made Men, they are a family and even Joey's disgust is only over Dave's lack of self-control NOT any regret that he murdered a man for no good reason. If Christopher from The Sopranos had killed someone in a public place over virtually nothing, Tony would have slapped him around and removed him from any position of responsibility in the family until he could prove he could keep his cool. Dave not only isn't castigated by his father for putting the family at risk but in episode 3 is made manager of the restaurant (or so I'm told...I gave up afte 2 episodes).

Second BIG black mark was in episode two after Ted decides to let a man keep most of the money he owes the Cutlers even though the guy had to rob a post office in order to pay up on time. The Cutlers are guests at the man's daughter's wedding where he gets drunk and throws the money in Ted's face, upset that his efforts were pointless.

Err... hello! These people could KILL you for not paying them back, the money was theirs to decide what to do with and they LET you keep it, you had to prove you could come through.

My own personal hangup with this show is yet again they tried to make the Cutlers out to be decent people who just happen to sometimes kill other people as opposed to the scum they are, who trade in human misery. In the very first episode Dave's ludicrously mis-scripted indifference to the "silly man" he pushed out of a window for daring to try and do his job is so out of place for a supposedly organised crime family that it is laughable.

Utter garbage. The first episode left a thoroughly unpleasant taste in my mouth ("I'm not having him talking like that to me when I'm speaking to Eddie!") and it appears to have escaped the writer's notice that Dave Cutler wouldn't survive 10 minutes in a real crew and is in dire need of a good kicking (read: unsympathetic tosser with no redeeming features who we are supposed to find endearing because he loves his mum and dad).

The only plus points are some high production values and some good acting from David Calder and Simone Lahbid.

My biggest hang up with this show was that with such fine talent on show they could have paid a little more care to keeping the story in the realms of reality. It is also a tired retread of almost every gangster cliché in the book (members of the firm singing along heartily to Sinatra while exchanging weary looks, one of the family being "a bit wild", the loathsome old scrote patriarch being utterly loved and loving to his grandchildren despite murdering people).

A real shame, this could have been great.

Five stars - high praise indeed.

I remember briefly watching 'Family' when it originally aired on ITV and liked it. Randomly came across some of the series on Youtube and was hooked.

I then swiftly purchased the DVD on Amazon (at a very attractive price!) and found it totally gripping. The performances are all top notch and believable. I completely disagree with the negative reviews, for me the characters were engaging and easy to warm too.

My only disappointment is that no second series ever materialised.