My Cousin Vinny reviewed on Blu-ray
By Bill Warren
The advertising for "My Cousin Vinny" insisted that it's a raucous fish-out-of-water comedy tossing a street-wise, fast-talking, tough little New York Italian--Joe Pesci, of course--into the still waters of the Deep South, with laffs aplenty following. Actually, it's a much gentler comedy, with strong overtones of drama; it doesn't deliver the laughs that it constantly seems on the verge of developing, but instead becomes involving because of the characters and the story. Overall, I guess I'd classify it as a failure, but it's actually quite an interesting failure, and somehow more satisfying than a lot of films that aim low and hit their targets.
It would have worked out better if writer Dale Launer ("Blind Date" but also "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels") had tossed out the comedy or the drama, and gone heavily with one or the other. As it is, the comedy more or less slowly dissipates from the film (apparently by intention), but the serious side isn't developed early enough. It's not a comedy-drama; it's first a comedy, then a drama, and that may alienate audiences--but I suspect instead audiences may become engrossed enough in the courtroom aspects of the movie that they'll forgive its change of tone.
It almost plays like a parody of movies such as "Macon County Line" (the terrible things that happen when northerners get stuck in a Southern town), but it's actually more than that. A couple of kids from New York, Bill Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) are mistaken for killers in the small town of Wahzoo, Alabama (the movie was shot entirely in Georgia), and arrested for murder. They have no money to speak of, so Bill is very grateful when his lawyer cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci) agrees to come down to Alabama and act as their counsel.
Things get bad, though, when the young men realize that Vinny has not only never tried a murder case, he's never tried any case in court, and has been a lawyer for "almost six weeks." But Bill trusts Vinny because he knows he's a great arguer, though Stan has very serious doubts.
So do we, at first, because director Jonathan Lynn and Launer's script want us to believe at the beginning that Vinny is really something of a buffoon. The production notes say that Vinny is modeled on the character Pesci played so memorably in "Raging Bull," but he actually seems--at first--more like the spaced-out whacko he played in "Lethal Weapon 2" "3" and "4." His brassy girlfriend Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) seems to regard Vinny as something of a loser.
But Pesci is far too honest an actor to go entirely along with these lies about Vinny. He's far more subdued here than you'd expect at first, working very hard at creating a character, not a caricature, and slowly we understand that Vinny is actually a serious guy, someone who wants to be a real lawyer, but at first, just doesn't know how. The turning point in the film for most audiences will probably be when he tells the prosecuting attorney (a fine performance by Lane Smith) how he came to study law in the first place. It's a surprisingly touching story about Vinny being befriended by an old judge, not the "It seemed like a good idea at the time" story we're half expecting. It's more real than that--and suddenly Vinny seems more real, and so does the plight of the two young men.
And, for that matter, so does Lisa. Marisa Tomei is sensational as Lisa, a dazzling, funny, warm and sympathetic performance, one of the two best in the film. Much to the surprise of almost everyone, probably including Tomei, she won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her role here. (She's helped by being wildly but believably costumed.) The other best performance comes from old reliable Fred Gwynne, as the suspicious, curmudgeonly judge who's presiding over the case, and who's appalled by Vinny and almost everything he does--but who also recognizes the New Yorker's intelligence. Pesci is also excellent, but like Tomei and Gwynne, plays the role for drama, not comedy, from the beginning, which is going to disconcert some. Austin Pendleton has a few good moments as a stuttering public defender, but Bruce McGill is wasted as the local sheriff.
After all, the film begins with not just one Big Comic Confusion Dialogue, but two of them. First, the boys think they're being arrested for stealing a can of tuna fish, and so keep saying things that sink them deeper into the mire of suspicion. Then when Vinny, a stranger to Stan, shows up at prison, Stan thinks Vinny's another prisoner (in a leather jacket?) who's there for sex. This goes on much too long. There's also some slapstick involving mud (which, surprisingly, turns out to have a real plot function), Vinny not being able to get sleep, and a rust-colored tux he's forced to wear to court one day. "My Cousin Vinny" really didn't need these oafish comic complications; it gets by rather well on the drama of the situation, and the growing realization that Vinny is likely to be--sooner or later--a terrific lawyer.
It's also hampered at times by somewhat contrived plotting. It's thoroughly established that Lisa is an expert on cars, and that she's eager to help Vinny, which makes her testifying about a key point of evidence at the end entirely in character--but it's not in character for her to snippily refuse to testify at first, just because she's angry at Vinny. She knows the boys' lives are on the line, after all. It's a false bit of suspense that's just irritating, not suspenseful.
The movie was shot in Georgia (so why wasn't it set there? Is Alabama a funnier state?), with an excellent choice of locales and attractive photography by Peter Deming. However, Deming has either been instructed or allowed to indulge in some wild camera angles ("Dutch angles") from time to time that simply seem intrusive and pointless, not to mention distracting. The Southern-flavored score by Randy Edelman occasionally goes overboard in folksiness, but it's basically quite good.
Jonathan Lynn was a major director of comedy for British television ("Yes, Minister"), but his work in movies--as a director, anyway--has been mixed. He did "Nuns on the Run" and "Clue," both of which, like "My Cousin Vinny," were successful when they were nervy, and failed when they followed the Hollywood party line. After "Vinny," he directed a few films that got some notice--"The Distinguished Gentleman," "Sgt. Bilko," "The Whole Nine Yards"--but what fame they achieved was attributable more to the casts and/or scripts than to Lynn's professional but mild direction.
This is another of all too many movies remastered for Blu-ray high definition. Little of any importance is added to the movie from being seen in high-def; it has standard photography, bland sets and no interesting visuals at all. It's hard to believe that this was a big seller on DVD for 20th Century-Fox, so why have they reissued it in Blu-ray? There are no extras to speak of, just a trailer and a couple of TV spots, and a singularly boring commentary track by director Lynn.
"My Cousin Vinny" sneaks up on you, and I'm not entirely sure that that was exactly what was intended. Those who believe it's a wacky comedy are bound to be somewhat disappointed, but if you're prepared not to laugh, there's a chance you'll find something appealing about this story, which is really about a guy who learns he's good at something, and who proves it to others as well. Pesci proves that he can effortless carry a movie, even when his energy level is lower than
you'd expect.
Around the time of "My Cousin Vinny," it seemed as though Pesci was embarking on a steady career as a major supporting player, but he went to the Italian-hood well once too often, particularly with "Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag," and hasn't worked as often as he probably should have. He needed to try several roles unlike those he plays for Scorsese, which includes this one, but he didn't, and is teetering on the verge of being an unfortunate has-been. Something similar happened to Marisa Tomei; yes, winning the Oscar for "My Cousin Vinny" probably helped her, but she, too, played variations on this character a little too often; good work, such as her performance as Mabel Normand in "Chaplin," somehow went unnoticed. But she's still working steadily. Both of them, however, have done better than Ralph Macchio, who disappeared into a scattering of very minor movies.
