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Director: Jonathan Lynn
Starring: Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Fred Gwynne, Lane Smith, Ralph Macchio, Mitchell Whitfield, Austin Pendleton, Bruce McGill
Comedies are not easy to make. A drama needs a good story, decent acting and quality direction. Comedy needs all of that (and the acting had better be something above decent, too), plus it has to be funny, too. That ain’t easy. My Cousin Vinny gets a little silly in spots, but there are great performances by Pesci, Tomei and Gwynne, who ends up with many of the funniest lines. These performances are helped along by a very good story and are topped with an excellent ending.
Macchio and Whitfield are Billy Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, two college students on their way back to school, when they are arrested for a murder they didn’t commit, in a small town in Alabama. Desperate, and faced with an expensive murder trial, Billy remembers that his cousin, Vinny, is a lawyer. What luck! At least until cousin Vinny (Peschi), shows up looking like a Brooklyn wise guy, with his sexy, but flamboyant fiancee, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei in an Oscar-nominated role). It turns out that Vinny Gambini is not quite the experienced and savvy mouthpiece that they had hoped for, but it is up to him to overcome a stickler of a judge played by Gwynne, an experienced prosecutor (Smith) and a load of evidence to keep his innocent cousin from the electric chair.
Humorous, but believable and likable, characters, a great story and clever dialog made this one of the best comedies of the nineties. Fred Gwynne passed away soon after its completion and his fine performance helped make this the great film it is and served as a wonderful addition to his legacy. If you haven’t seen it, see it. If you have seen it, see it again.
