Sean Connery names his most overlooked movie: “I don’t know anybody who went to see it”
There’s not even a debate over which role defined the career of Sean Connery, but remove James Bond from the equation, and there are plenty of pictures that could find themselves vying for consideration.
He wasn’t the first actor to play 007 on-screen, but he was the one who brought the suave secret agent to the masses by fronting Dr. No, which gave him an inbuilt advantage over everyone to follow in his wake. As the inaugurator of the Bond franchise, he had nobody else to be compared to or contrasted with, and his performance remains as iconic as it ever was.
Outside of his most memorable gig, Connery won an Academy Award for Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, played Harrison Ford’s father in adventure classic Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, headlined one of the finest action blockbusters of its era in The Rock, and brought gravitas to the cult classic Highlander.
That’s without even mentioning his Alfred Hitchcock collaboration Marnie, lending support in Richard Attenborough’s war epic A Bridge Too Far, sparring with Michael Caine in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King, Sidney Lumet’s star-studded literary adaptation Murder on the Orient Express, or the hauntingly off-putting red underpants he sported in Zardoz.
He’s been in hit movies and shit movies, but one thing that’s arguably worse than being in an awful film is being in one that nobody cares about, especially when it’s one the star holds close to their heart. For Connery, that dagger to the chest came in 1989 after he reunited with Lumet, anchoring the ensemble of a generational family drama that had the misfortune of releasing months after Last Crusade.
“I think my most overlooked picture was Family Business,” Connery informed Roger Ebert. “I’ve never been able to work out why it had absolutely no curiosity value. I don’t know anybody who went to see it. I know the mistake of the film, but I liked the idea. I still don’t understand why there wasn’t any measure of curiosity about that picture.”
In the movie, Connery stars as an expat and professional criminal who trains his son—played by Dustin Hoffman—in the best ways to reap the rewards and ill-gotten gains of a life of crime. However, when his son was born, young Vito decided to turn his life around and get on the straight and narrow.
Decades later, Matthew Broderick’s grandson becomes enamoured with the lifestyle the patriarch has cultivated for himself, only for a bungled heist to create schisms throughout the clan that lead to estrangement, imprisonment, death, grief, regrets, and reconciliation.
It’s got an interesting premise and a killer cast, but if Connery is calling it his most overlooked credit ever, then it’s obvious Family Business didn’t take off in the way he thought – or hoped – it would.
