My Cousin Vinny
Year: 1992
Grade: B+
Country: USA
Director: Lynn
Reviewit’s a fish out of water film mixed with a comedy of misunderstandings. it’s a very funny film at times and, at almost two hours, it goes by fairly quickly. like many comedies, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief. how likely is it that someone has the ignition timing of a 64 chevy memorized, how likely is it that a judge allowed pesci to argue a case without documentation of his credentials, etc? but that’s the standard for comedies so if you haven’t learned to look past that stuff by now then maybe you should stick to bergman and fassbinder.
pesci and tomei were both good, though i’m not so sure about the oscar for tomei for her performance here. i like her – i liked her in slums of beverly hills and i liked her here, but i just don’t know that it’s an oscar worthy performance. that said, i do think that comic performances are often overlooked by the academy so i applaud them for giving some props to a comic performance.
the direction did more in its shot setup than the typical comedy does. there were some angled/tilted shots that mixed up the look of the film and added a welcome flair to the picture. a fine comedy.