DAY 5: MY COUSIN VINNY
To be quite frank, I am not sure how to review this film. Part of it is that I am embarrassed by how similar watching this film was to my encounter with Shawshank, in that I refused to watch it for a long time (You know where a bunch of people are a fan of something and you naturally feel compelled to be suspicious…e.g. snootily skeptical…about its worth in a begrudging-hipster sort of way? Anyone who has ever read Armond White knows exactly what I am talking about.), only for it to end up as one of my favorite films once I got (as my uncle would put it) my figurative head out of my ass and gave it a chance. And the other factor? Well…let’s just say that my family exhibits a great deal of the Italian-American macho mannerisms exhibited by Vinny and Company (I will get to that later), and as I try to write this, I find myself subconsciously comparing my family’s behavior to the film itself. In other words, on a personal level, it’s an awkward story for me to analyze (and if I give anything other than universal praise, I’ll never hear the end of it). None of this should be counted as a detriment to the film.
OK, enough rambling, here is the plot in vague tones, since a huge amount of the humor involves how the main characters get from Point A to Point B. Two New Yorkers, Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) and Bill Gambini (Ralph Macchio, who between this and Karate Kid, built a career out of playing the hapless victim of life’s misfortunes), decide to drive to UCLA for their next term of college and pass through Beechum County, Alabama. By chance, bad timing puts them in a seriously bad spot, when they grab food at a local convenience store and end up leaving with an arrest for murder. Unlike Shawshank, I am not spoiling anything in saying that the audience knows their innocence from the start; the fun is seeing how they are able to get out of such a situation. With the defense that “he’s family” (which, realistically, seems like a bit of a stretch), Bill decides that his cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci) could be their defense lawyer. So with his lovely-but-spunky fiancée Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei), Vinny comes down and…proceeds to screw up at every possible turn, completely unfamiliar with the Southern customs and anti-“big mouth” mannerisms necessary for Alabama court room etiquette (this…is a bit more likely). The fact that it is seen as even remotely possible (e.g. realistic in any sense) that Vinny could win the case by movie’s end is a miracle in screenwriting lore. Which you will hopefully notice between the repeated pain of your ribs from laughing so hard.
With this being said, two questions must be asked of this film in particular: Does the audience learn how much of a culture shock a New Yorker would face coming down there, and do the characters (on both ends) handle such awkwardness in a manner that makes this comedy serve its original purpose – namely, to laugh at its absurdity? On both counts, the verdict is a yes. At every turn between the checkpoints of the trial itself, the local population and environment are effectively used to show how out of his element Vinny is. Sometimes it only takes one time for a joke to hit home (Anyone want grits after this? Anyone at all? …I thought not.), and other times a joke is recycled several times over the course of the film (the arc regarding being able to sleep is actually quite well-delivered). But to writer Dale Launer’s credit, most of these little scenes play a big role in how the case unfolds and they almost always catches you off-guard. And especially in the courtroom, director Jonathan Lynn does a pretty good job (most of the time) in shooting said scenes in a way that lets us focus on what is being argued and not how it’s being shot. In other words, Michael Bay would NEVER be able to pull this off.
Their collective jobs here, however, are to bring out the best in the actors, because for all its pratfalls and fantastic dialogue, the bulk of the film hinges on how their respective characters come across…thank God Italians are not shamed. Despite the fact that Joe Pesci has played wanna-piece-of-me confronters like Vinny roughly, say, 573 times in his career, it is nice to see him gradually come to the realization that such an attitude alone will not help him here. In the couple scenes where he shows a little macho-laced vulnerability and (justifiably felt) insecurity, it works…eh, pretty well, which only makes his in-your-face moments in court all the more enjoyable. This added dimension is largely sparked by the presence of Marisa Tomei, who hits her role – as the fiancée who is subtly sweet and supportive, but openly won’t take any “horsepucky” – out of the ballpark. The chemistry between the two is thick as marinara sauce, and it really feel like the two enjoy bringing the best out of each other…which, by the way, is exactly why I do not mind her winning an Oscar for this film. And for those of you who think this sort of attitude would never work in a courtroom or family setting? I have experienced these sorts of “Italian time bomb” personalities all my life, and…yeah, they’re accurate.
In all honesty, I am not the sort who ever developed the same sort of New Yorker mannerisms that my family did, so I can perfectly understand if a film chock full of ‘em may turn some people off. And as for some of the legal inconsistencies in the film…I’ll refrain from comment. (All I will say is that in order to avoid mistrials, countersuits and terrible press in this day and age, no suspect would ever, ever, EVER be as poorly informed as the unlucky college students are in this situation, and it throws you out of the film a little.) But what’s a little exaggeration in a film like this anyway? I suppose it helps that those playing the Alabama locals, in particular the stern-but-fair Judge Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne, who I mistook for a real Southern judge at times), hold their own and don’t come across as backwoods pushovers. And regarding the film as a whole, it’s got a bunch of memorable quotes, the originality of the script shines through, and…well, in all honesty, when I first saw Vinny handle this case on DVD, I rewatched the last 15 minutes three times in a row. I guess as the audience “jury”, he swayed me.
Score:
TOMORROW (DAY 6): APOCALYPSE NOW
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