Line #29 Film/Malavita


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/la-bande-annonce-de-malavita-avec-de-niro-1_9709.jpg]]
2
3	->''"Fuck."''
4	-->-- The film's {{Arc Word\|s}}
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6	''Malavita'' (titled ''The Family'' for international release) is a 2013 French-American film directed by Creator/LucBesson, starring Creator/RobertDeNiro, Creator/TommyLeeJones, Creator/MichellePfeiffer and Creator/DiannaAgron.
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8	The Manzoni family, a notorious Mafia clan, is relocated to Normandy, France, under the witness protection program. Just like all the other attempted relocations, fitting in soon becomes challenging as their old habits die hard. But the Mafia soon comes calling, intending to finish what they started.
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10	----
11	!!''Malavita'' provides examples of:
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13	* ActorIsTheTitleCharacter: "Creator/RobertDeNiro is one Killer Dad", "Creator/MichellePfeiffer is one Bad Mother", "Creator/DiannaAgron is the Mobgirl Next Door", and "John D'Leo is the Young Gun".
14	* AlliterativeName: '''M'''aggie '''M'''anzoni. After the family assumes the Blake surname as an alias, Belle fills this trope. Although, Maggie [[AllThereInTheManual changed her given name]] like her husband, so she's really Livia Manzoni ''or'' Maggie Blake.
15	* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:The film ends with the Manzonis forced to relocate to another town while Fred remarks that he now has to rewrite his memoirs.]]
16	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Belle's confession to her math teacher.
17	* AssholeVictim: See the second bullet on DisproportionateRetribution.
18	* AttemptedRape:
19	** One of the henchmen was going to do this to Maggie then kill her before Giovanni intervened.
20	** It's implied that the French boys taking Belle to the park intended this. The book has their intentions far more obvious and explicit.
21	* BadassFamily: Especially since they were formerly part of the Mafia.
22	* BeleagueredBureaucrat: Agent Stansfield, in a way. He's completely exasperated at having to relocate the Manzoni family all the time because they keep blowing their cover.
23	* BlackComedy
24	* CelebrityParadox: Fred/Giovanni ends up giving his opinion on the film ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}''. The fact that he happens to look identical to one of the actors of the film is only briefly addressed.
25	* ContrivedCoincidence: Warren writes a small English wordplay quip that he heard from the old mob boss as a child for the student paper, which is then published and spread across the town, then taken to America by a father on a business trip, then tossed in the trash, then rescued from the dump truck, and used to wrap a bottle of wine delivered to [[spoiler: the mob boss. He uses this to find the family in the climax.]]
26	* CopKiller: The Mafia hitmen murder all the cops as their first move in coming after the Manzonis, to stop anyone helping them.
27	* CuteAndPsycho: Belle is a cute blonde teenager. She's also scarily proficient with guns and beats the crap out of a sleazy boy with a tennis racquet. [[spoiler:However, she does end up breaking down crying after barely escaping getting killed.]]
28	-->'''Warren''': You're a maniac.
29	-->'''Belle''': Thank you.
30	* DamselOutOfDistress: Belle beats the shit out of her attempted rapist using a tennis racquet.
31	* DeadpanSnarker: Stan, the agent in charge of the Manzoni Family's protection. Considering he's played by Tommy Lee Jones, this is not surprising in the least.
32	* DisproportionateRetribution: The Manzoni family's specialty.
33	** Giovanni twice. First, he ''kills a man'' for giving him bad lobsters (justifying this by saying they could have poisoned his family). Later, unhappy with the state of the water supply in town, sets about to rectify the problem. He brutally beats up the plumber who tries to extort him and drags the CEO of the local chemical plant along behind his car when the man interrupts him. Giovanni finally settles the water issue by blowing up the turbines at the local chemical plant with dynamite.
34	** Maggie asks for peanut butter at the local supermarket. After informing her that there is none and brushing her off, the shopkeeper goes on to gossip in French with a few other patrons about how stupid, entitled, and obese all Americans are. She overhears them and the supermarket blows up shortly after she walks out.
35	** The kids' behavior, whilst extreme, is seemingly justified in the case of Warren when he's [[spoiler: kicking the shit out of the jocks who did the same to him just for being the new kid]] and maybe not enough in the case of Belle [[spoiler: breaking a tennis racquet all over a kid and taking his friend's car because they were sleazily hitting on her and it's implied plotting her rape]]. Of course, they enjoy punishing people a little too extremely at other times.
36	* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:Ironically, the very same mobster who tried to have the dog shot then ends up attacked by the dog when he falls next to him.]]
37	* DoubleEntendre: When Rocco tells Belle "you're not a little girl any more" it's not only just that he hasn't seem her since she was 11 or 12, but also inferring (Besson loving these jokes) the fact that she just lost her virginity.
38	* DressingToDie: [[spoiler: Belle]] takes a [[VirginInAWhiteDress white dress]], implied to be her mother's wedding dress, and her mother's pearls when [[DrivenToSuicide she goes to kill herself]]. She doesn't end up jumping, but the intent is there, as she is heartbroken after the man she gave her virginity to (and sex is SeriousBusiness to her) says that it was nice but doesn't want to be with her over the phone after avoiding her. Her family about to be relocated and her realizing she's never going to have any sort of quiet life she wants is also a contributing factor.
39	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:[[InterruptedSuicide Averted]] with Belle. She was all ready to jump from the roof over her broken heart, until she saw the hitmen coming to take out her family.]]
40	* {{Eagleland}}: Discussed and invoked. Many people were not fond of "the Blakes" due to them being American.
41	* EveryoneLovesBlondes: Especially when they look like Creator/DiannaAgron or Creator/MichellePfeiffer.
42	* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether
43	* FamilyTitle: Literally in some international releases.
44	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Some of the family's attacks are shortly preceded by a line referring to it, usually by the character who suffers the fate, but spoken as a common English idiom; no guesses for what happens in these:
45	-->"I think Miss America's going to knock them dead at the pool."
46	-->"It might cost you an arm and a leg, or both arms and both legs."
47	-->"It might drag on but we always find a solution in the end."
48	* FrenchJerk: A few of the characters the titular family encounter throughout the film.
49	* GirlyBruiser: Belle. Presumably Maggie as well.
50	* GoingCommando: [[spoiler: Belle's seduction scene includes this.]]
51	* HairTriggerTemper: The entire family is guilty of this, which is why they tend to relocate so often because they blow their cover.
52	* HereditaryHairstyle: In part of the StrongFamilyResemblance, Giovanni and Maggie's hair colors respectively match that of their son and daughter.
53	* HereWeGoAgain: [[spoiler: The family relocates once again at the end of the film.]]
54	* HighSchoolHustler: Warren wastes no time bribing, stealing and blackmailing his way around school. However, this does land him a disciplinary hearing in front of the school board.
55	-->'''Warren''': I want to see my lawyer.
56	* HotForTeacher: Belle falls for the young, [[HotTeacher handsome math teacher.]]
57	* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: Giovanni writes his memoirs throughout the movie.
58	* IntersceneDiegetic: Used when Belle is singing along and listening to music on a walkman, that then shifts to be playing on the radio at her parent's flashback garden party.
59	* KickTheDog: [[spoiler: The mobsters sent to kill the Manzoni family blow up the house, and find the family dog still alive. One of them tries to get another one to shoot it, since the boss did say "kill the ''whole'' family". Fortunately, Belle comes in just in time.]]
60	* LittleMissSnarker: Belle. Warren is an inverted example.
61	* TheMafia: The Manzonis were with a Mafia family. Giovanni/Frank turning state's evidence on his boss got him into the witness protection program and sent to France along with his family under new identities. However, while they aren't formally Mafiosi anymore, they're still in the same mindset throughout the film. The group they left also are hunting for all of them in revenge.
62	* MeaningfulName: "Warren" means 'home', "[[{{lampshaded}} Belle]]" is [[BilingualBonus French for]] 'beautiful', "Livia" (Maggie) is the Empress of Italy.
63	* {{Pun}}: "Son of a bitch", followed by the male dog whimpering.
64	* RealityHasNoSubtitles: An odd case. The family has been living in France for six years, and most of Warren's schooling will have been in French, so it is safe to assume that most of the time the characters will be speaking in French to the French people. Of course, all of the important dialogue (when it is with teachers, the mayor, and the priest, for example) is in English so that the audience can understand it. When the background French characters are saying things that do not contribute to the story, it remains in unsubtitled French. Of course, this brings us to the moments where the characters speaking French or English is of significant importance to the plot (the supermarket scene). So, the trope is averted for that scene, however in the rest of the film there is a lot of French without subtitles, very noticeable when there is the speech in English of what would likely be spoken in French (if the film world were realistic).
65	* RenamedTheSame: Mostly averted, but while the whole family changed their last name to "Blake" (from Manzoni), it may be that the kids didn't change their given names. In the film, Maggie accidentally calling her husband "Gio(vanni)" instead of "Fred" is discussed, and in the book the same is done in reverse for him calling her "Livia". It is also suggested in the book that Belle isn't actually the daughter's real name, and there's no word on Warren (who would have been very young, so perhaps didn't need to).
66	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The mobsters leave a path of carnage across France trying to find the Manzonis.
67	* ShoutOut: [[Film/TheProfessional This isn't the only Besson movie to focus on the Mafia with a law enforcement agent named "Stansfield" as one of the characters]].
68	* StrongFamilyResemblance: Belle and Warren are the spitting images of their parents, Maggie and Fred. Warren even has a mole just like his dad.
69	* TheirFirstTime: Belle seduces her teacher, and loses her virginity through him.
70	* TitleDrop: "Family" a lot, and when Fred is talking to the dog he calls it "Malavita".
71	* TopTenList: Fred invokes the trope while writing his memoirs (this BadassCreed is made funnier by what he remembers):
72	--> '''Fred:''' I won't spare myself. I'll tell the story without trying to make myself look good. But in this chapter I'll do the opposite and demonstrate to you that if you take a closer look, I'm a good guy. I'll prove it to you in 10 points. A bit like one of Letterman's Late Show Top 10 Lists. So here we go...
73	--> Number 10: I am always up front. Always.
74	--> Number 9: I never look for a scapegoat.
75	--> Number 8: If you give me a job, I'll always see it through.
76	--> Number 7: I've never shown contempt for people who fear me.
77	--> Number 6: I've never betrayed the guy who gave me my first gun.
78	--> Number 5: I never wished any harm on anybody.
79	--> Number 4: I lived outside the law, but only outlaws didn't judge me.
80	--> Number 3: Anybody who doesn't contradict me can expect nothing but good things from me.
81	--> Number 2: In my neighborhood when I was running it, there was never a single robbery on the street. People lived and slept peacefully.
82	--> Number 1 of the top 10 reasons why I'm a good guy? I don't like to cause pain for no reason, because all my sadistic urges are satisfied when I cause pain for a good reason.
83	* VirginInAWhiteDress: Belle wears a floral white sundress in two crucial scenes that regard her virginal status - [[spoiler: when she violently prevents the town's local douchbags from raping her, and in her love scene with the math teacher, where she loses her virginity.]]
84	* VisualPun:
85	** There are lots of clever scene transitions, commonly for discretion, but using a sound bridge so that the first action of the cover-up scene heavily implies the ending of the one cut short.
86	** The dog whines after Fred says "son of a bitch".
87	* WallBangHer: This is how Belle and her teacher had sex after she seduced him (it's her first time too).
88	* WitnessProtection: Although it's made clear that the family is less than pleased with the constant moving around due to their old mob habits blowing their cover.
89	* WitlessProtectionProgram: In the third act of ''Film/{{Malavita}}'', the Mafia family that has been hunting down [[BadassFamily the Manzonis]] ever since Giovanni (the father) provided State's evidence manages to find out that the Manzonis are hidden in a small town in France by a collection of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s involving Giovanni's son writing [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay an article using a quip his father liked to use in his Mafia days]] for his school paper and a copy making it all the way to the United States and the hands of the Don.

Context Film / Malavita