Word: earle
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...willing suspension of disbelief is necessary from the very outset of "A Family Thing," with its unlikely pairing of Robert Duvall and James Earl Jones as brothers. Unfortunately, an improbable premise is not the movie's only problem: despite the weight of its two lead actors, it ultimately fails to achieve any lasting emotional impact...
...film begins after the funeral of Arkansas native Earl Pilcher's (Duvall) mother. In a letter written before her death, she reveals that, although he looks white, Pilcher's real mother was a black woman, a maid forced into a sexual relation with his father. She died after giving birth to Earl, who was afterwards taken into the Pilcher household and brought up as a legitimate son because of his white skin and features. Further, Earl learns that through his natural mother he has a half brother named Ray Murdoch, now a policeman living in Chicago...
Visibly shaken by this revelation, Earl nonetheless finds himself driving up to Chicago in his pickup truck in search of this unknown brother. He eventually tracks down Ray (Jones), who meets him with barely concealed hostility, and the two part with an apparently mutual desire never to see each other again. However, by a quirk of fate, Earl runs into four black youths who rough him up and make off with his wallet and his truck. Against his will, Ray is forced to take Earl temporarily into his own house...
...film is well acted, and Duvall and Jones generate some genuine, tastefully understated chemistry without slipping into sloppy sentiment. Another plus is Irma Hall, who is wonderfully enjoyable as the testy, domineering, but open-minded and warmhearted Aunt T., the sister of Earl and Ray's dead mother. But "A Family Thing" stumbles in its attempt to bring other, cliched themes and subplots into play. Earl's first few days in Chicago, including his night of drunken wandering, are a tired variation on "hillbilly enters the big city," with a few half-hearted efforts at humor and some moments...
...from Omaha, Nebraska. And although most Illinois casinos attract few out-of-staters, East St. Louis is an exception. On two recent nights some 70% of the Casino Queen's patrons were white, many of them from across the river in Missouri. "Casino gambling is a shell game," explains Earl Grinols, a University of Illinois economics professor, "attracting dollars from one person's pocket to another and from one region to another...