They've Created A Mobster

MICKEY BLUE EYES
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

Let's face it. Kelly Makin's MICKEY BLUE EYES is ANALYZE THIS-lite, but that isn�t necessarily a bad thing. Any movie with Hugh Grant (NOTTING HILL), James Caan (THE GODFATHER) and Jeanne Tripplehorn (BASIC INSTINCT) is almost guaranteed to be an entertaining success, even if a similar one with Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal and Lisa Kudrow was better. Big laughs are big laughs. That another movie earlier in the year would rate higher on the laugh-o-meter is irrelevant. MICKEY BLUE EYES delivers more than enough crowd pleasing humor.

Hugh Grant, with his boyish grin and his rumpled good looks, is the master of the I-can't-believe-this-is-happening-to-me situation. He wears his charming naivet� on his sleeve and makes what he does look so easy that it doesn't appear to be acting. After all, he always seems to be playing himself.

In NOTTING HILL, he was astonished to find that a movie star had come into his bookstore and his life. In MICKEY BLUE EYES, he's shocked to find that he has accidentally joined the Mafia. And this isn't even the worst part. He incurs the wrath of a rival family, who wants revenge.

It all starts innocently enough. Art auction house manager Michael Felgate (Grant) tries the most charming of devices to propose to his girlfriend, Gina (Tripplehorn). At a Chinese restaurant, he attempts to arrange for the owner to stuff his marriage proposal into Gina's fortune cookie. The results prove surprisingly disastrous, as do most of poor Michael's actions in the story. The upshot is that Gina refuses to marry him because she's worried that her father, Frank (Caan), will corrupt Michael. Frank, an extremely friendly Mafioso runs a restaurant known as "The La Trattoria." Michael points out the problem with the name, but, as in the rest of the story, people don't pay much attention to his opinion.

A sophisticated English gentleman, Michael appears noticeably awkward among Frank and his male-kissing Italian "family." The movie, with few exceptions, never forgets it's a parody. The well chosen and high-spirited music, as in the "We Are Family" song played when Michael first meets Frank's coworkers, adds to the movie's merriment.

After Gina agrees to marry Michael, her worst fears are realized. Before he knows it, Michael's gallery is laundering money for the mob, and the FBI is investigating. Although trying hard to avoid any degree of criminality, Michael, nevertheless, manages to earn himself the moniker of Kansas City Mickey Blue Eyes. The movie's funniest scenes have him trying with little success to mimic the gang's pronunciation of such classic lines as "Fuggedaboutit." ."

With his grace and style, Grant dominates the film, but the rest of the cast nicely complement him. Tripplehorn, whose strength is her sexuality, taps a comedic reservoir rarely seen before other than her work in last year's underappreciated black comedy VERY BAD THINGS. Caan is delightfully charming as the father with a disreputable profession. Frank's a swell guy even if his car does tend to be stuffed with boxes of stolen Cuisinarts and his trunk has the occasional dead body. Every actor who has ever played an Italian mobster appears to be in the large and effective supporting cast.

Director Makin (KIDS IN THE HALL) generally has a good sense of comedic timing, although some parts of the movie flag briefly. The movie is old-fashioned fun. But does it go so far as to be memorable? Fuggedaboutit.

MICKEY BLUE EYES runs 1:42. It is rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some violence and sensuality and would be fine for kids 9 and up.

My son Jeffrey, age 10, found the film funny and gave it ***. He liked the actors and the ending surprises.

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