The
Family
Came
out; 2013
Time;
1 hours 51 minutes
Watched:
Amazon
Rating;
R for violence, language and brief sexuality
IMDB
Rating; 6.3/10
Caution;
Spoiler Alert
Staring;
Robert
DeNiro as Fred Blake
Michelle
Pfeiffer as Maggie Blake
Dianna
Agron as Belle Blake
John
D'Leo as Warren Blake
Tommy
Lee Jones as Robert Stansfield
Jimmy
Palumbo as Di Cicco
Story
Line;
A
mafia boss and his family are relocated to a sleepy town in France
under the witness protection program after snitching on the mob.
Despite the best efforts of FBI Agent Stansfield (Tommy
Lee Jones)
to keep them in line, Fred Manzoni (Robert
De Niro),
his wife Maggie (Michelle
Pfeiffer)
and their children Belle (Dianna
Agron)
and Warren (John
D'Leo)
can't help but revert to old habits and blow their cover by handling
their problems the "family" way, enabling their former
mafia cronies to track them down. Chaos ensues as old scores are
settled in the unlikeliest of settings
Thoughts;
I
swear I watched this movie before, but it wasn't listed.
This
is pretty good, it's a funny movie with lots of little details.
CAUTION;
Major Spoiler Alert
The
camera pans out on a family of four eating a meal together. The
doorbell rings, and the husband/father answers. As he puts his eye to
the peephole, a bomb explodes, blowing his corpse back to the dining
table. The wife/mother frantically tries to call the police as a man
in a black hat and coat walks through the destroyed door, holding a
gun. He rubs out the rest of the family, including both adolescent
kids, without a word. He then takes a hatchet from his briefcase and
hacks off a finger from the man's hand.
The voice of Fred
Blake (Robert
De Niro) says that the only question people should ask is the
value of a man's life. Fred says he's worth $20 million, and he'd
give away the entire fortune to get his old life back.
Fred is
riding in a car driven by his wife, Maggie (Michelle
Pfeiffer), while their two kids, Warren (John
D'Leo) and Belle (Dianna
Agron) ride in the back with the family dog, Malavita. They're
all heading toward a new home in Cholong-sur-Avre in Normandy,
France. Maggie is unsure of the house's exact location because the
houses on the street have no numbers, but Fred is able to locate the
correct house due to instructions from an acquaintance named
Stansfield.
They all get settled in, unpacking some of their
belongings, which are already there (although the TV is late in
arriving). During small talk, it's revealed that the Blake family has
lived in the Riviera and Paris.
Maggie offers to help Fred
unpack, but he tells her to get the kids to bed, as they have school
the very next day. The real reason, however, is that unknown to the
rest of the family, Fred had a dead body in the trunk. He buries it
in the back yard while nobody is looking.
In the morning, over
breakfast, it's revealed that the Blake family has used different
surnames in different parts of France. After Warren and Belle leave
for school, Maggie tells Fred she's going to pick up groceries, and
that Stansfield said that until he arrives that day, Fred shouldn't
step outside the house. They need to come up with something to tell
the neighbors, and if anyone were to ask, they should say they're
American.
The Blake family are federal witnesses. Fred's real
name is Giovanni Manzoni, and he and his family were part of a mafia
family from Brooklyn. Giovanni's grandfather drove one of the cars at
the funeral procession for Vito Genovese's wife, and Gio's father was
one of 107 mob bosses to attend a notorious 1957 Apalachian
Convention. Giovanni and his family are in Witness protection because
he turned informant and testified against a high-ranking Don named
Luchese (Stan
Carp), sending him to jail. Squeaking rats being one of the most
despised things among the mafia, the whole Manzoni family has a $20
million bounty on their heads. Stansfield is the family's FBI
contact.
Soon as Maggie is gone, Fred steps outside. He's seen
through a camera lens, and he seems to turn right toward it, as if he
knows the person or persons with the camera, are there. Later, he
rummages through some of the family belongings until he finds
something he appears to prize: a manual typewriter.
The
Manzonis waste little time starting to run afoul of the locals and
the way of life in Cholong-sur-Avre, and they deal with it the best
way they know how: mafia style. Maggie stops for coffee and learns
the closest sightseeing attractions are in another town, twenty
kilometers distant. Warren runs into a group of young French students
led by Andre (Jonas
Bloquet), who want to shake him down for some cash, take his
backtalk with disdain, and mudhole stomp him in a locker
room.
Maggie is annoyed with the stereotypical anti-American
sentiment of the French grocery store owner and two French customers.
She grabs some materials that act as a makeshift explosive and sets
it off in the back of the store, destroying much of it.
Meeting
for lunch, Belle and Warren strategize. As the outsiders in a foreign
school, they need to stick close together. Warren has cased a
majority of the students and has learned who runs 'contraband' (like
cigarettes), and who can be exploited for what-- including the
potential to turn the tables on Andre's gang, who beat him up and hit
on Belle.
Fred begins typing a memoir of his life on the
typewriter. Later, he goes out into the backyard and is spotted by a
neighbor tending to his rose garden. The neighbor strikes up small
talk, which proves troublesome for Fred. Asked about his work, he
says he's a writer. Afraid to say he writes novels, because he
doesn't know anything about it, he says he's writing about the armed
forces landing at Normandy on D-Day... and finds his neighbor knows a
lot about this subject; much more than Fred himself.
Maggie
visits a church, where the local priest makes her acquaintance. He
greets new arrivals cordially, which is something Maggie feels she
and her family need right now.
After school is done for the
day, Warren goes right to work. He finds that an engineer's son
collects trading cards for the Paris S.G. and is only missing one
card, ready to give anything in return for it. Warren assures the
youth he'll see if he can help acquire it. Meanwhile, Belle is
walking home when Andre and his gang start following her in their
car, offering her a ride. When Belle realizes she missed a turn
trying to ignore them, they take advantage, asking where she lives
and then telling her it's miles away, and it'll be dark before she
gets home. Against her better judgment, Belle accepts the offer of a
ride, and she doesn't need long to see through the French boys'
charm; they drive to a local leisure park and lay down a picnic
blanket. They clearly have seduction on their minds. Their
overconfidence proves deadly, as they allow Belle to rummage through
the trunk of their car, where she finds a tennis racket. She knocks
Andre down and viciously bashes the racket against his head until it
breaks, before giving the shocked boys a stern lecture on how young
women deserve to be treated. She gets in their car and drives off,
leaving them there. She drives partway home before leaving the car on
the shoulder of the road and walking the rest of the way.
The
scene shifts to Attica State prison, where a guard delivers a bucket
of ice to Don Luchese. Despite being in prison for life, Luchese
lives like a king, with a private cell furnished nearly as well as a
good quality motel room, and at least one of the guards caters to him
as well. One of Luchese's underlings is in the prison with him. He
takes the bucket and dumps it in the sink; among the ice is the
finger hacked off from the man who was killed the beginning of the
movie. The ice kept it fresh so that Luchese is able to take a
fingerprint and compare it to Fred's prints from a copy of his
Buffalo police record. The prints don't match, so Luchese knows that
the Manzonis are still alive. They call Rocco (Jon
Freda), who carried out the hit, to inform him, and he promises
to continue looking.
The Manzonis are making small talk over
dinner when Stansfield (Tommy
Lee Jones) shows up to see how their first day went. He's also
there to make sure the Manzonis behave themselves: two weeks ago, in
Nice, Maggie bought a dozen lobsters from a man named Mourad, that
turned out to be rotten; Fred beat Mourad to a pulp, and two days
ago, Mourad went missing (he's the stiff that Fred buried in the
backyard). That the Manzonis bought a whole dozen lobsters smacks of
a 'business deal;' the kind the Manzonis aren't allowed to make, as
per the terms of the Witness Protection program. Stansfield has had
to relocate the Manzonis numerous times because of how they all
handle 'fitting in' at each new place. His job is to keep them safe,
but they're making his job very hard.
That night, Fred has a
nightmare about a party he and Luchese's men co-hosted back in
Brooklyn; he happens to turn and look at Luchese, who runs a finger
across his throat, and suddenly every guest at the party turns toward
Giovanni, pointing a gun at him.
Fred is at his typewriter
again, continuing his memoirs. He says, in a voiceover, that
Stansfield's duty is to tell the 'official' version of what happened
to get a $20 million bounty on the lives of all four Manzonis. Fred
wants to write down the whole truth, just once, without any
deception, even if nobody reads it. He says his story is impossible
to just make up. It turns out Maggie has suspected what Fred was up
to, and she's plenty angry about it, even a single typed hardcopy, as
opposed to something written on computer disk, is at risk of being
seen by the wrong eyes. Maggie insists she could have been consulted,
but the last time Fred did that, she had him say he was an architect
and suddenly everyone was coming to him for advice on expanding their
homes. For now, Maggie wants her husband to be a plumber; the sink's
tap water is brown, and can't be trusted for washing or drinking. She
called the local plumber twice and he never showed.
Maggie
steps outside, looking around for prying eyes, and goes to a nearby
house where two FBI agents, Caputo (Domenick
Lombardozzi) and DiCicco (Jimmy
Palumbo), are watching over their safety. She brings them some
home-cooked food, making pleasant small talk. Unlike Fred, Maggie
knows the value of proper diplomacy and keeping on the agents' good
side... and she can use the company, being Americans in a country
infamous for not looking kindly on most Americans. During small talk,
it's revealed that Stansfield is arranging for the Manzonis to host a
block barbeque to meet and get acquainted with most of the
neighbors.
The next day at school, during lunch, Belle and
Warren again strategize. Warren has been hard at work doing
'business' of his own; he's made a fake copy of the last trading card
the engineer's son needs; in return he gets a copy of math homework
which he trades to another student for another favor. He also gets a
copy of the Goth girl's school report, promising to alter it in a way
her parents would like, in return for an equal share of the cigarette
market. He also 'picked up' a splinter so he could raid the school
nurse's medicine cabinet for some energy pills he sells. Belle,
meanwhile, found out who took something from her purse, and beat the
girl to a pulp in the rest room.
Belle looks across the lunch
room and her gaze falls across a handsome young man, who Warren knows
is a college student doing substitute teaching work for a disliked
regular who's on maternity leave. The substitute is studying for a
very difficult math exam, and all the senior-level girls have the
hots for him.
Still with Caputo and DiCicco, Maggie looks
through their binoculars with which they spy on, and gather
information about, all the neighbors, to watch for any security
threats. Maggie also sees the plumber show up at her house, and
smiles to herself in satisfaction.
The plumber, Ramirez (Tonio
Descanvelle), tells Fred that the brown water could be a result
of either the house's pipes, which are very old, or the town water
mains. If it's the mains, the Manzonis would need to take it up with
the town mayor; if it's the pipes, they'll need a full overhaul,
which will cost a great deal of money and take a great deal of time.
Ramirez gets very condescending and rude as he suggests Fred call
Ramirez's wife, pay 50% up front and make another appointment. He
boasts about his family, fathers and sons, being plumbers for five
generations.
When Ramirez asks Fred about his line of work,
Fred turns toward a nook in the basement and pulls out a baseball
bat. Cut to Maggie still watching through the binoculars, and she
sees Fred carrying an unconscious Ramirez out of the house and
putting him in the back of his plumber van, before Fred gets into the
driver's seat and drives the van off.
As school ends, Belle
makes her move on the substitute, Henri (OisÃn
Stack), telling him she needs private tutoring in math.
Andre
and gang meets the engineer's son to acquire a hi-fi they need for a
pre-prom party, only to find that the engineer's son and several
other students are working with Warren. The bully gang gets their
taste of being on the wrong end of a beatdown.
Fred has
brought Ramirez to a hospital after having beaten him with an inch of
his life with the baseball bat. He's unable to explain to the doctor
how Ramirez became so badly injured from 'a fall down stairs,' but
finally provides a street-smart escape by saying he's not a doctor
himself.
Rocco is speaking with Mourad's family, showing them
a photo of Fred. He's posing as an FBI agent looking into
disappearances. Mourad's wife tells Rocco that Fred is a friend of
her husband, and unlike in the photo, he has a beard now. Rocco's
questioning makes one of the sons suspicious and he asks to see
Rocco's FBI badge. Rocco flashes an evil smile as he agrees to the
request, and we then see him looking around shiftily as he steps out
of the apartment, after he's killed the whole family.
Fred is
writing his memoirs, and in a voiceover and flashbacks, he goes over
a list of ten points that show he's a 'good guy;' of course, the
flashbacks show scenes of his time running a crime ring in Brooklyn
that demonstrate just how 'good' of a guy he really is. His top point
is that he only causes pain with good reason. Cut to his beating
Ramirez senseless with the baseball bat, pounding on him until the
bat breaks, and then picking up where he left off with a
short-handled mallet.
Maggie confronts Fred about crippling
Ramirez, but he shuts her up by pointing out he knows about the
supermarket she blew up. He starts coming on to his wife, and she's
reluctant at first, but Fred knows how to turn the charm up in ways
she can't resist.
Preparing for the barbecue, Maggie tells
Belle that Henri called to find out what time it was. Despite Belle's
protests that he's just tutoring her in math, Maggie knows what is
really on her daughter's long-term goal list. Warren arrives home
with bottles of Coca-Cola, assuring his mother that the French
neighbors will be expecting 'greasy, fatty American slop' from the
American family living among their midst.
As Warren predicted,
the whole neighborhood shows up for the barbeque. Stansfield calls
Caputo and DiCicco and tells them to go too, as all the neighbors are
there and they need to blend in.
Maggie greets the incoming
guests, playing perfect hostess, until she notices one neighbor (who
Caputo and DiCocco had told her, was kleptomaniac) quietly pocketing
some silverware. Maggie pours the neighbnr some champagne and
whispers to her to put the silverware back or Maggie will break her
arms.
Fred hasn't come out yet; he's still writing. Maggie
sends Belle to get him. Fred quietly tells Belle one of his regrets;
despite the zeal with which he carried out his work as a crime boss,
he regrets not always having done right by his kids. Belle assures
him that she loves him and wouldn't trade him for any other father,
and this convinces him to come out.
No sooner is Fred
preparing the barbeque, however, when several neighbors start telling
him that the method he's using isn't efficient, and how he should
really be doing it for better results. He smiles politely, but his
eyes show his irritation. As they continue laughing, we see Fred lose
his cool and start maiming them-- until Stansfield taps his shoulder,
showing it was just Fred imagining it. Sharing a drink with Fred at
the bar, Stansfield reveals that Whalberg, a contact who's recently
been elected to the Senate, was worried about Fred telling the latest
neighbors that he's a writer. Whalberg and Stansfield know that Fred
is writing personal memoirs, and Stansfield is there to caution him
about what he puts in them, and whether or not it's a good idea to
let anyone see them.
As the party is wrapping up, Maggie
comforts Belle about Henri not having shown, and Stansfield drops a
not-so-subtle warning to Fred regarding one of Gio's former
associates.
The next morning as they walk to school, Warren
tells Belle that Fred can turn the word 'fuck' into one of the most
versatile in the human vocabulary, which makes it curious how he
spends so much time writing.
Fred goes to see the mayor about
the town water main, only to be given a runaround. The mayor insists
that the water main is working normally and makes a sticking point
about the Manzonis being new in town. Fred shakes hands politely, but
we see him enjoying the thought of grabbing the mayor and using the
mayor's desk drawer to crush his fingers.
At the school study
hall, Henri notes that Belle has improved considerably, but she sees
she really has her work cut out for her when she learns that once he
passes his exams, he plans to move to Paris in search of a full-time
main teaching position.
Meanwhile, following the trail, Fred
visits the town water main. The maintenance supervisor shows that the
water is already brown when it reaches the water main, and he
suspects a nearby chemical fertilizing plant; the only one of its
kind in the area.
Maggie is praying at church when the priest
arrives. The priest notes that Maggie often comes to pray during
midday, but never at Mass. He asks if she's interested in making
confession. Maggie warily asks about priest confidentiality, and he
assures her that the oath is sacred.
During class, one of
Warren's teachers requests a homework assignment that's overdue from
him; a short story written in English, on wordplay and double
meanings, for the school newspaper. She gives him a strict deadline,
leaving him scrambling to come up with something on the fly.
Remembering a neighborhood mafia party at which all of Luchese's
family were present, Warren remembers a double entendre recited by
Luchese regarding Boris Godunov: "If it's Godunov for you, it's
good enough for me." The much younger Warren had found it funny
and laughed along with it. Warren quickly writes it all down for his
teacher, and it's printed in the school newspaper. Of course, a copy
of this newspaper ends up in the one pair of hands it was never meant
for: Don Luchese (a funny series of actions shows how the paper
arrives in his cell and gets his attention). He recognizes the short
story immediately and glares at the credit: "Warren Blake,
3e2."
Fred has just enough time to walk into the office
of the chemical fertilizer company president, Mr. Chambard (Serge
Tranvouez) when he's told not to talk about the 'brown water'
problem. Chambard gives a shockingly rude and crude suggestion to buy
bottled water instead of using free tap water. This time it's no mere
moment of personal imagination when we see Fred drag a badly beaten
Chambard out onto a road with Chambard's motorcycle, threatening to
drag him along the road by the cycle. Chambard tells him about one of
the turbines and where it is; if his company is responsible at all,
the turbine would be the culprit.
Fred arrives home to find
Stansfield reading his memoir manuscript, and they have it out over
the writing, as well as Fred continuously escaping regular FBI
surveillance, which is enough to warrant termination of Witness
Protection. Stansfield tells Fred he wants the manuscript when Fred
is finished.
Henri is packing to take a train to Paris, and
has prepared some home work for Belle. But it's Belle who's donning
the teacher's cap for a lesson in something quite different from
math, in the privacy of the office.
Mr. LeMercier (Cédric
Zimmerlin), the English teacher whose face Fred imagined pushing
down on the hot barbeque grill, calls to tell Fred that he's hosted
Cholong's film society for five years now; they show a classic film,
followed by a debate on it. He's asking Fred to attending a showing
of the classic film Some
Came Running (1958) by Vincente Minnelli. Not wanting to
come across as rude, Fred tells LeMercier that he'll get back to
him.
Soon as Fred hangs up, DiCicco, who along with Caputo,
listen in on all calls to and from the Blake home, promptly grills
Fred about his response. Stansfield shows up a few moments later,
furious at Fred's leaving the decision open, because it can blow his
cover. Trying to defend himself, Fred points out he's supposed to
'integrate' to the community and didn't want to give them a rude
brush-off. Fred insists he's going to get a copy of the movie in
advance of the showing, watch it at home, and then he's bringing
Stansfield to the film society showing and debate, which will earn
Stansfield a good write-up in Fred's memoirs (a promise that draws a
chuckle from Stansfield).
Don Luchese sees Fat Willy (Vincent
Pastore), one of the heavy muscle in his organization, and shows
him a copy of the newspaper from the school Warren and Belle attend.
He orders all available men to head there at once and kill all of the
Manzoni family.
Warren is summoned before a faculty board to
answer twenty-two student complaints. The committee head offers for
him to take his pick of where to start: assault, corruption,
bullying, and threatening students and faculty alike.
Caputo
and DiCicco are finding continued surveillance of Fred getting
tedious, as he simply sits at his desk in the shed. But in fact,
they're watching a cleverly made-up mannequin, as Fred has gone to
the chemical fertilizer plant's main turbine. He wires a batch of
explosives to a wind-up alarm clock and places it where it will do
the 'most good,' but not be easily spotted.
Henri calls Belle
to tell her that he's certain he's gotten an excellent grade on his
exam to qualify for a full-time teaching position, and he's going to
stay in Paris a few days to look for an apartment and see his father.
Belle's smile reverses as Henri then tells her that her seduction of
him was 'a fabulous moment' and 'an experience.' Belle starts to cry
as Henri tries to downplay what she thought was a declaration of her
undying love (even Caputo and DiCicco call him an asshole for 'doing
it over the phone'). Belle tells Henri that love was the only thing
that could extract her from the crazy life she's been required to
lead, and he's just crushed it, before she hangs up and breaks down
in tears.
Stansfield shows up to attend the film showing and
debate with Fred. He's still quite displeased at being roped into it.
Rather than walk, Stansfield says they'll take his car.
If
life was not taking enough of a downturn for the Manzonis, Maggie
goes to the church during a flea market, to find the priest has
turned against her. He's appalled and horrified at the confession
she's made as the moll of a mob boss. He's under sacred oath not to
share the confession, but it's haunted him all week, calling her
family out as having made a pact with the devil. He demands she leave
the church and not return.
The film showing is about to start
when LeMercier announces that the Normandy Cinema association has
sent the wrong film. Instead of Some Came Running, the film of the
night will be Goodfellas
(1990), by Martin Scorsese. Stansfield is horrified, wanting to
drag Fred away and out of the showing then and there, but Fred pushes
for them to stay, because it would look too suspicious if they ran
away now; and more importantly, because Fred is extremely familiar
with the meaning of the movie's storyline and background, he can be a
very credible figure in the debate.
Belle overhears Warren
hurriedly arriving home and hastily packing. Warren tells his sister
that he doesn't want the Feds blaming her and their parents for what
he's done at school, so he's running off to Paris. He's prepared
forged ID and a passport to assist him in 'starting in the business.'
Warren sees that Belle is wearing one of Maggie's pearl necklaces;
she tells him she's going to be with the man she loves. Belle hugs
her brother and wishes him good luck, telling him she loves him.
The
showing of Goodfellas finishes and LeMercier asks Fred to sit up
front for the debate. Stansfield listens as Fred starts to describe
the start of a young teenage boy's start in a life of crime that
sounds eerily like his own beginnings.
Warren is at the train
station waiting for a train to Paris. A train pulls up, and a number
of burly men debark, all carrying heavy leather cases and wearing
trenchcoats. Warren nearly has a heart attack as he recognizes these
men as Luchese's. For a moment he thinks he's dead, but the men walk
past him, not paying attention, and not recognizing him, as it's been
several years since any of them had last seen him as a child. They
pile into two black cars that are waiting for them.
With Rocco
and Willie are a number of serious heavy hitters: Bernie (Anthony
Desio), Tommy (Ted
Arcidi), and Billy the Bug (Michael
J. Panichelli Jr.), all of whom are huge and burly. Seasoned hit
men Paulo (Raymond
Franza), Mezzo (David
Belle), and Albert (Paul
Borghese) round out the hit team.
Warren hurries to a
phone booth to warn his family. Caputo and DiCicco wonder why
nobody's answering, until they see Maggie's car pull in. But just as
Maggie reaches the phone, Warren has run out of the phone booth,
leaving the phone dangling off the hook.
As the two cars drive
down the road, Rocco calls Albert on a cell phone and tells them to
take care of the fire house, and then meet him and his group outside
the town hall. His men will be getting a feel for the town in order
to carry out their mission quietly, quickly, and without raising a
general alarm.
Fred is a huge hit at the post-movie debate,
but Stansfield isn't pleased. He calls Caputo and DiCicco, telling
them to round up Maggie and the kids for Plan B.
Belle calls
Henri from a cell phone she's mugged another girl for. She tells him
that she just wanted to say that she loves him and that she wanted to
hear his voice one more time, 'before she goes.' The camera pans out
to show she's on the roof of the Cholong church, and the meaning of
'before she goes' becomes ominously clear.
As it happens,
Belle is right across from the local police station, and she glances
down to see Rocco and Bernie with their men arriving there. They
quickly ambush and kill the officers on duty, and access the
computer, inputting the name Warren Blake. When a Fred Blake, Maggie
Blake and Belle Blake all also come up at the same address, they know
they've hit paydirt. Belle watches in growing fear as Rocco and his
men exit the station and return to their car. She hurriedly tells
Henri she'll call him back; all thoughts of killing herself turning
into a need to protect her family.
The other group of
Luchese's men arrive at the fire house, taking out the one man on
duty and puncturing all the tires on all the fire trucks. Warren sees
them pulling up to the fire house and turns away desperately, so they
don't see his face.
Maggie checks in with Caputo and DiCicco,
who tell her that Stansfield has ordered emergency evacuation of the
family. Fred's performance at the debate has earned him the accolades
of, and a standing ovation from, everyone except Stansfield, who's
sure that loose lips about his regalement of them with his stories,
will lead back to him. Little does Stansfield know that Luchese's
men, in a cafe not far, are already meticulously planning their hit;
a fully coordinated assault on the Manzoni household. They're not
taking any chances at blowing the $20 million bounty. They
synchronize their watches; it will be midnight, French time, in 15
seconds.
Midnight hits, and the explosives Fred planted at the
chemical fertilizer plant's turbine, goes off, destroying the turbine
and giving Fred an airtight alibi; he was at the film society
meeting, with Stansfield in attendance, the whole night.
Everyone,
however, feels and hears the rumble from the explosion: Luchese's
men, Caputo and DiCicco, and Fred and Stansfield. The feds call the
emergency response crews to find the switchboards are down, which
they know means serious trouble. Racing back to the Manzoni house
with Fred in tow, Stansfield warns Fred that there had better be no
trail leading anywhere near him; that Fred's alibi is so airtight is
exactly what makes him so suspicious.
Stansfield drops Fred
off at his house, forbidding him to leave, and calls DiCicco to tell
him that he wants the whole family in the house while he swings by
the police station.
Rocco and crew pull up to a town square
and spread out to get a feel for the area. Rocco knows that the
Manzonis have federal officers nearby watching them, and he
dispatches Bernie to find and deal with them.
Despite orders
to the contrary, Caputo and DiCicco give in to Maggie's pleas that
she be allowed five minutes to find Warren and Belle, and pack some
clothes. As she heads toward her house, she spots several of
Luchese's men carefully spreading out and staking out key street
intersections and all possible avenues of escape for them to cut off
and intercept. Making it back to the fed house, she gasps for air and
tells Caputo and DiCicco. "They're here. The streets are
crawling with them."
Stansfield arrives at the police
station and finds the dead officers. He warns his men that a cleanup
operation is underway.
Fred turns on his water faucet and is
pleased at seeing clear, clean water emerge. It's the urgent barking
of the dog, Malavita, that alerts him to possible trouble. Luchese's
men are unpacking all their hardware for the cleanup. Peeking through
the window, Maggie gasps in horror at seeing Billy the Bug preparing
a portable rocket launcher. She calls Fred, tearfully begging that he
pick up the phone. Fred stares at the phone as it rings, listening to
both the ringing and Malavita's agitated barking. He's unsure whether
the incoming call is to verify that he's home as preparation for a
hit.
Billy releases the rocket, and the explosion is seen and
heard across Cholong. Stansfield steps on the gas to hurry to the
Manzoni home. Caputo covers Maggie's mouth to mute her scream. Paulo,
on lookout, kills two neighbors who step outside, including Arnaud.
Grabbing their heaviest duty ordnance, DiCicco and Caputo tell Maggie
that they're going to step out their back entrance, and Maggie is to
wait for their signal before following.
The two feds never
reach the door: Bernie is waiting outside with his automatic rifle,
and he kills them both before they know what hit them. Maggie cowers
in a corner, but it takes Bernie very little time to find her. Bernie
has enough respect for Maggie as a person, that he wants to kill her
clean and quick. But mob rules demand no such respect for the family
of a rat. She must be raped before she's killed. But although dirty
and a little shaken up from the explosion, Fred is otherwise
unscathed, and has made it there unseen. He jumps on Bernie's back
from behind, grabs Bernie's belt, which the enforcer had removed
while undoing his pants, and uses the leather strap as a garotte.
Bernie fights viciously, but Fred hangs on like a bulldog. The
chokehold finally starts to sap Bernie's strength. Seeing her
husband's defense of her, and Bernie weakening, Maggie finally grabs
a big kitchen knife and stabs Bernie in the chest, finishing
him.
Paulo goes to reload, but Warren and Belle have arrived
back home. Belle whacks Paulo from behind just as he turns back
around, and she and Warren arm themselves with spare guns. They
ambush the remainder of Luchese's men, and even Malavita gets in a
kill. Both Belle and Warren run out of ammo, and Warren hurries to
the car to grab another. He grabs a shotgun and turns just in time to
kill Mezzo. The recoil knocks Warren back against the car and stuns
him. Belle catches him before he falls.
One last enforcer has
to be dealt with: Rocco himself. He points his gun at Belle, poised
to kill the girl-- but he, too, is out of ammo. Dropping Warren,
Belle turns and runs as Rocco chases her down. But at an
intersection, just as Rocco runs through it, a mere few meters behind
Belle, he's run down by Stansfield, arriving on the scene to make the
final save. Belle collapses to her hands and knees on the street and
sobs, as Warren comes to, comes up behind his sister, and holds
her.
Maggie is at the wheel of the Manzoni car as they drive
through the late night to their next home. Fred is pleased with
himself; he's fixed the brown water problem, was a hit for one night
at Cholong-sur-Avre's film society, and he believes his family is
more close-knit than anything. The bounty on his head is probably
double what it was before, but the only real bummer to him is that he
has to rewrite his memoirs from the start, and they have to change
their names again.
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