MOVIES Jonathan Richards, Santa Fe Reporter
ENGAGED TO THE MOB
MICKEY BLUE EYES Directed by Kelly Makin Screenplay by Adam Sheinman and Robert Kuhn With Hugh Grant, Jeanne Tripplehorn UA North PG-13 102 min.
Nobody does Hugh Grant like Hugh Grant. The urbane, slightly sheepish, self-deprecating poise, the adorable, floppy-haired, twinkling-eyed good looks, the Englishness worn simultaneously as an apologetic scarlet "E" and a badge of honor -- it all adds up to an original and satisfying screen persona. In "Mickey Blue Eyes", the gag is to juxtapose that character against a very different ethnicity and style: the Mob. It's a good gag, and Grant uses his considerable skills to keep it light and funny for a nice stretch as the movie gets underway. He's Michael Felgate, director of a posh Manhattan art auction house whose biggest problem is surly truckers who make late and incomplete deliveries. When he gets engaged to Gina Vitale (Jeanne Tripplehorn), daughter of a mobster (James Caan), that problem miraculously disappears. But his real problems are just starting. At first Gina refuses him because she doesn't want him mixed up in the family business. He thinks he can handle it. Boy, is he naive. Soon he's up to his French cuffs in money laundering, and his and the movie's problems multipy when the stakes are raised with a murder. Director Makin doesn't seem up to that change of gears. Laughs continue intermittently, and there are some good ones, but the sureness is gone. The movie offers situations that want to be hilarious, as with a confusion of signals involving an old lady at an auction, but neither the setup nor the payoff rise to the occasion, which cries for Monty Pythonesque abandon. There's not much olive oil in the veins of Tripplehorn's Mafia princess, and not much chemistry between her and Grant (there's more between Grant and Caan.) The Italian-American actors who make their living as celluloid mafiosi are comfortable in their familiar roles. "Mickey Blue Eyes" coasts after a funny start, and can't find its rhythm when the plot takes a darker turn. But it gets out of the gate fast, and with Hugh Grant in the saddle it provides plenty of laughs along the way. *********************************** (Jon Richards's weekly editorial cartoon can be seen at http://cmty.prodigy.net/news/)
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