Family Business

Director Sidney Lumet has crafted a film with real pathos while writer Vincent Patrick (adapting his own novel) injects enough bawdy humor to create a delightful mixed bag spiced with almost a European sensibility.

Family Business tries to play it down the middle, when it probably should have jumped in one direction or the other, toward a pure caper or toward a family drama.

Family Business isn't really bad. It is thought-provoking throughout and has many fine moments. Unfortunately, most of those moments are in the first third. [18 Dec 1989, p.C05]

There's an odd meeting of pathos and caper-comedy in Family Business, an uneasy blend of comedy and drama that never does seem to figure out what it's up to. The movie darts in one direction, then another. When it loses its way, it slows to a plod. It's a bust. [15 Dec 1989, p.5G]

A frail little caper movie that’s overawed by its cast.

The film doesn't move to a satisfactory conclusion as much as it fizzles out in a series of protracted anti-climaxes. [15 Dec 1989, p.A]

Slapdash Sidney Lumet directs this misbegotten three-star vehicle, an overpowered tricycle of a tale with Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick unconvincing as successive generations of the genetically eclectic McMullen clan.