While I've never turned 180 degrees about a movie, "My Cousin Vinny" is a rare example of one that significantly grew on me over time. Back in 1993, I expected the film to quickly fade from memory. Now it's years later, and I'm still quoting its lines. I'll be preparing breakfast, when the words spring to the surface of my mind, "No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits." I smile at the memory. This movie got me into eating grits, but not the kind that would qualify me as a self-respecting Southerner.
This is a movie defined more by small moments than by big events. Plotwise, it's fairly routine. But the small moments make all the difference. Too many Hollywood comedies get hung up on the initial inspiration and then end up flat. I have more respect for a film that takes an old worn idea and makes it work.
Recently, I viewed the original trailer on Youtube. As trailers often do, it highlights the movie's very few pratfalls: Joe Pesci slipping in the mud, Joe Pesci punching a guy on the street, Joe Pesci coming to court dressed in a ridiculous suit. Though marketed as slapstick, the actual film is almost entirely dialogue-driven. It's the type of comedy where most of the characters are intelligent but still end up at each other's throats because of differences in personality and background.
The movie concerns two New York college students (Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield) who stop at a convenience store in Alabama shortly before a murder takes place. They inadvertently take a can of tuna fish without paying, and when they're pulled over as murder suspects, they end up "confessing" to a crime they don't even realize they're being charged with, because of carefully parsed conversations aided by their paranoia about the rough-and-tumble justice of the South. This whole opening sequence sounds funnier than it plays out.
But then Pesci, as Macchio's cousin Vinny, arrives in town to defend the kids. Much of the film takes place outside the courtroom, as Vinny interacts with the locals and bickers with his fiancée (Marisa Tomei). There is a strong enough human element that the film may appeal to those who don't normally enjoy legal comedies.
With its elaborate plot contrivances, a movie like this has a danger of seeming cartoonish. It avoids that fate partly because of a cleverly written screenplay, but even more because of the warm performances.
Over the years, movie buffs have made it a sport to bash Tomei's performance. I consider that highly unfair. She sparkles in this role, displaying much chemistry with Pesci despite being more than twenty years younger, a fact the movie somehow makes invisible. I suspect that most people would agree with me if not for her having received a surprising Oscar, followed by persistent (though implausible) rumors that an old and senile Jack Palance had called out the wrong name. People tend to over-criticize things they feel are over-rated.
The other performances are equally crucial. Fred Gwynne's judge is a stock character--the hard-nosed authority figure whom we gradually come to respect. But with his knowing smile, Gwynne occupies the role so engagingly that he transcends the stereotype. Lane Smith plays the DA as someone who would seem like a decent guy if not for our knowledge that he's jeopardizing two innocent lives based on circumstantial evidence. That the movie avoids caricature is one of its attractions.
But Pesci carries the film. Earlier performances of his--the pesky sidekick in "Lethal Weapon 2," the burglar in "Home Alone," and the crazy gangster in "Goodfellas," which earned him an Oscar--might not have predicted that he could play lead, even in a comedy. He manages to create a Danny DeVito sort of character, a funny little guy who's shrewd, but infectiously likable. There is barely a hint of his psycho image here, except in one of the movie's funniest scenes, when the kid who's unrelated to Vinny sees him coming toward the jail cell and thinks he's a rapist.
The movie does a good job depicting Vinny's strengths and weaknesses as an attorney. His lack of courtroom experience, a fact he tries to conceal from the judge, provides for some laughs. The conceit is that he's very good at what he does, once he gets going. With Pesci in command of the screen, this theme manages to work. A scene where he uncovers the fatal flaw in a tough but disingenuous witness's testimony is executed with such beautiful timing that it seems to depend almost entirely on Pesci's presence--a lesser actor could have easily screwed it up, no matter how good the script sounded.
The movie is not perfect. As I mentioned before, it never really takes off until Pesci appears. A sequence featuring Austin Pendleton as an incompetent public defender is overdone and drags. And the movie's climax involves details a bit too technical to be appropriate for a comedy. But the heart of the film is in the relationships: the romantic tension between Pesci and Tomei, and the cultural tension between them and the locals--all of it charming, all of it resulting in hilarious payoff.