Family Business (1989)

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.