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It seems that Hugh Grant is made for romantic comedies. He hit it big in Hollywood with Four Weddings & A Funeral and romantic comedies just keep coming from him. Of course it would actually seem odd picturing him in serious roles like he had in Extreme Measures. Nonetheless, romantic comedies seem to suit him just fine, so why mess with success? In this romantic comedy Hugh (Notting Hill) plays art auctioneer Michael Felgate, a Brit in New York who is in love with Gina (Jeanne Tripplehorn from Sliding Doors). So one night Michael sets up a special evening to propose to Gina, and everything goes wrong including the end result as Gina runs off crying after Michael pops the question. Michael is quite surprised and tracks her down to her dad’s place. Michael shows up after meeting her father for the first time, and we then discover why Gina had been keeping her family away from Michael. You see, Gina’s father Frank Vitale (James Caan (Eraser) is a member of the Mafia and works for crime lord Vito “The Butcher” Vitale (Burt Young). Vito, who is known as Uncle Vinnie, has a disturbed son who thinks he is an artist. But back to Michael and Gina. Gina explains to Michael that she can’t marry him because she loves him so much that she doesn’t want him to become part of her mob family. However, Michael assures her that everything will be fine and that he’ll stay away from the crime part of the family. But unbeknownst to Michael, the family plans on integrating him into their crime network by using Vito’s son Johnny’s (John Ventimiglia) disturbed paintings to launder money through Michael’s auction house. So the question turns out to be not only will the two stay together, but can they stay alive too? Mickey Blue Eyes has a couple of great restaurant scenes thanks to the writers Robert Kuhn and Adam Scheinman. However, a lot of parts of this Kelly Makin directed film are slow and not nearly as funny as the restaurant scenes, and they often end up as mob clichés. These clichés are often compounded by a cast that include many familiar mob faces in Joe Viterelli (Analyze This), Tony Darrow, Paul Lazar, Vincent Pastore, Carmine Parisi, and Frank Pellegrino to go along with actors like Scott Thompson, Maddie Corman, Gerry Becker (A Perfect Murder), and Michael Kennealy. This film has a lot of laughs at the expense of the Mafia, and to a lesser extent, the British. Of course this is a Hugh Grant romantic comedy, so it’s not entirely ground breaking filmmaking. But, I enjoyed myself (get your minds out of the gutter) watching Mickey Blue Eyes, especially the restaurant scenes, and thus give it seven couches out of ten. Bye.
Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:45:39 AM Click Here to get back into frames.
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