A FAMILY THING
A film review by Robin Redcrest
Copyright 1996 Robin Redcrest
The URL of this review is http://moviereviews.com/janesreviews/afamilything.html
Rating: 2 stars (Out of 4)
When a movie is a lot like life, it can be startling and thought provoking or just plain dull. "A Family Thing" has moments of both.
Robert Duvall stars as Earl, the good old boy owner of an auto shop in Smalltown, Arkansas, with a neck as red as a home grown tomato. His mother's deathbed revelation to him is that he's really the half black by product of her husband's rape of the family cleaning lady. Not the kind of news that's going to get you elected Grand Poobah of the local Elks lodge in the deep south.
Obediently, Earl cusses out his Daddy, then honors his mother's last wishes and sets out for Chicago to meet and put a face to his half brother Ray, marvelously played by James Earl Jones. The two men dislike each other instantly, but a funny thing happens. It's clear that if the pair had been 30 years younger, they would've gone at each other until only one was left standing. But Earl is 63 and Ray is 69. Try as they might to maintain the hatred that history and culture should have fostered between them, they just can't. Age and maturity have ravaged their once rampant testosterone, and shown that life is a lot better handled as grownups.
One very funny scene does show the two trying to get into a fist fight, and ending up rolling over each other and bursting into laughter. Oh that every living human being who harbors anger and hatred against a ridiculous stereotype could have this experience! The two form a bond - albeit, a somewhat uneasy one - and set out to discover what the new meaning of family might just be.
See what I mean? Not a high concept adrenaline rush of a plot, but a gentle, matter-of-fact story about how life really is. Parts of it were conducive to nodding off. Any part that contained the salty Aunt T. (played by the earthy and wonderful Irma P. Hall) was hilariously funny.
Mostly, "A Family Thing" was just a simple, reassuring story that after all is said and done, the bitterness of life's troubles just ain't that big of a deal.
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