My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Uh, everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you.
THE SUMMARY: Two New Yorker college kids are falsely accused of an Alabama murder and call on their inexperienced attorney cousin Vinny to win their case at trial, and if you blink or look at your phone for a minute, you’ll miss something seemingly mundane that turns out to be highly consequential. Excellent, clever writing wins me over easily, and in that category, this movie is elite.
THE BEST
A+ writing and dialogue: Upon the initial interrogation of Bill with the Sheriff, I knew this movie would be for me. Bill thinks he’s admitting to stealing a can of tuna, the Sheriff thinks he’s admitting to murder, and they continue a conversation with each character misunderstanding the other. I loved it, and then the initial dialogue between Vinny and Stan in the jail cell does it even better (it’s your ass, not mine! - see beside ➡️).
It’s not easy to write entire dialogues with double meaning that don’t sound forced, but this movie does it well. I wouldn’t call the movie ‘laugh out loud’ funny, though it does have good jokes, but what shines to me is its cleverness. It’s not that I was laughing the whole time - it’s that there were so many ‘aha! I see what you did there’ moments. Every piece of dialogue, while funny, also serves an important purpose in tying up the complexities of the story, and this movie leaves few if any loose ends.Seemingly unimportant things turn out to be crucially important: If you don’t have patience, there are a lot of things at the start of the movie that seem trivial, unimportant, or even a waste of time. They aren’t. Just like a real legal case, even the most mundane details can have crucial consequences. The mud on the tires when Vinny and Mona Lisa arrive in town, the conversation about grits at the diner, Mona Lisa’s odd expertise on tools and hardware when the hotel faucet is leaking - in each of these scenes, I was wondering why the movie was spending time on these oddly specific things. At trial, all of these tiny details are vital pieces to the case.
Mona Lisa has Blonde’s Disease: The scene at the cabin where Vinny is stressed with the pressure of the case and Mona Lisa’s Blonde’s Disease flares up is excellent. There’s comedy in the dialogue and Vinny snapping back with all the consequences hinging on his performance, but as funny as the scene is, it’s also an important truth: you can give a woman everything else, but don’t expect her to be satisfied without a ring and a baby, and don’t be surprised when that urge confronts you at inopportune times.
THE WORST: I love this movie, so just a couple nitpicks:
The $200 fight doesn’t get a satisfying end: Throughout the movie, a looming fight over a $200 bet is built up, and Vinny is threatening to kick the ass of a guy three times his size. For all the other cleverness in this movie, I was expecting that plotline to go somewhere creative - instead, it ends with Vinny weirdly diving on the guy to claim the money in a quick, anti-climactic scene. It’s one of the few plot points that I don’t understand why it was included.
Vinny’s sudden transformation is somewhat unexplained: I’m still not totally clear how Vinny goes from 5-time Bar failure to trial all-star. He seemingly knows nothing about law, and suddenly snaps into the Sherlock Holmes of legal discovery and gives a defense performance that would make Johnnie Cochran blush. Maybe there’s some symbolism in Mona Lisa’s nudging him on his rights to see the prosecution’s evidence and witnesses? Maybe the metaphor is the support of a good woman can unlock your potential? I’m probably over-thinking it.
THE RATING: 5/5 Wickies. The writing earned it, and so did Joe Pesci standing next to that giant Frankenstein freak of a judge.
To be fair, I guess everyone towers over Joe Pesci. Even juvenile Macaulay Culkin kicked his ass.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: Blade Runner (1982) Note: we will not do a movie review for the week of July 4. Blade Runner will be reviewed on the July 11 show.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE!