Hugh Capone Mickey Blue Eyes
By Ross Anthony
A single delivery truck attempts to give this film a good name ("Ross Movers") during the opening sequence. Unfortunately,the goods are a day late and a dollar short -- how apropos of the film itself.
Hugh falls for Jeanne. Jeanne's pop (Caan) is Mafia; ditto for rest of the males in her family. She fears for the corruption of her soon-to-be hubby. "Mickey Blue Eyes" is the step by step account of that corruption. This occurs in a rather unstructured way that gives the film little movement until the third act (last half hour) in which an interesting and amusing sting plan is conceived, flubbed, and twisted.
Poor editing plagues the picture, especially in the first act. A scene in a Chinese restaurant could have been funny, but falls on its face due to poorly-timed and over-abundant edits. Dry-whitted Grant is cute and charming, but trudges through painfully flat film moments that made me wince.
The handful of times that Hugh tries to act like a tough New York Italian gangster are really quite entertaining. They may, in fact, be the most amusing moments of the film. But they are a rarity in this back and forth love story, Mel Brooks-like farce, "Get Shorty"-wannabe picture.
Starring Hugh Grant, Jeanne Tripplehorn, James Caan. Directed by Kelly Makin. Written by Adam Scheinman and Robert Kuhn. Produced by Elizabeth Hurley and Charles Mulvehill at Simian/Castle Rock. Rated PG-13.
Grade..........................B-
-- Copyright © 1999 Ross Anthony, currently based in Los Angeles, has scripted and shot documentaries, music videos, and shorts in 35 countries across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. For more reviews visit: http://RossAnthony.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews