My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny is a movie that meanders along going nowhere in particular, and then lightning strikes. I didn't get much involved in it, and yet individual moments and some of the performances were very funny. It's the kind of movie home video was invented for: Not worth the trip to the theater, but slam it into the VCR and you get your rental's worth. Read full review

My Cousin Vinny is easily the most inventive and enjoyable American film farce in a long time, even during those extended patches when it seems to be marking time or when it continues with a running gag that can't stay the distance. The film has a secure and sophisticated sense of what makes farce so delicious. Read full review

My Cousin Vinny is a terrific variation on the fish-out-of-water/man-from-Mars story formula. Starring Joe Pesci as a slicker in the land of grits, My Cousin Vinny should tickle funny bones in every region and ring out a green spring for 20th Century Fox at the box office. Read full review

At two hours, something as thin and unexceptional as this, is just too long. The result is that all the running gags run out of steam and there are far too many fudgy bits between the comic highlights. Nevertheless, lightly likable. Read full review

Clocking in at just under two hours, MY COUSIN VINNY moves at an extremely leisurely pace for a Hollywood farce. But that's just one indication of what makes this appealingly quirky comedy stand apart from more run-of-the-mill fare. Read full review

Pesci's variation on New Jersey machismo (vulnerable in this case) isn't enough to fill a comedy; but Dale Launer's script luckily provides some fine routines for the supporting cast, notably the scene-stealing Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito, Pesci's sharp-tongued girlfriend. It's a small, surprisingly gentle affair, prone to fits and starts, but fun. Read full review

Tomei, sashaying through the proceedings as kind of a sexy hood ornament, creates a buoyant chemistry with her combative boyfriend. Read full review

The movie, however, is Pesci's. In that courtroom, he gets on a roll and stays rolling until the end. There's no one better with that New York-New Jersey corridor accent. Read full review

Given the temptations to goof it up, Pesci's performance in My Cousin Vinny is something of a triumph. As Vincent Gambini, a swaggering pint-sized New York lawyer who only recently passed the bar on his sixth try, Pesci modulates his usual psycho-nuttiness and gives it some recognizably human, even melancholy, undertones. The movie is a very mixed bag, but it's not quite the dumb fest that the TV spots make it out to be. Pesci gives Vinny's ultimate vindication a note of bittersweet triumph. Read full review

It's hardly brilliant. But it's easygoing and occasionally quite funny and ultimately satisfying. Read full review

My Cousin Vinny is the definition of obvious, and it’s way too long (do films like this really need an hour’s worth of setup?). But Pesci and Tomei make a first-rate team — they’re Punch and Judy gone Brooklyn. Read full review

My Cousin Vinny is a hoot. Read full review

There's a lot of wasted effort here trying to distract us from what we know good and well is going to happen. Nevertheless, it's time pleasantly spent. Read full review

A good-hearted comedy of clashing cultures. The film finds great fun in coaxing out and mocking a range of regional differences, from mutually impenetrable accents to radical variants in dress codes, but miraculously never descends to broad, dismissive caricatures. Read full review

Nothing makes a moviegoer feel more isolated than sitting stony-faced through a comedy that makes the rest of the audience laugh and cheer. Am I blind? Or are they seeing things? Read full review

Joe Pesci has more energy than charm in the title role, but the supporting cast has some terrific moments, and the comedy supplies a fair number of laughs before running completely out of steam. Read full review

While it's easy to imagine an infinite number of bad courtroom comedies based on this scenario, this 1992 movie turns out to be wonderful—broad and low character comedy that's solidly imagined and beautifully played. Read full review

My Cousin Vinny is a cement-handed courtroom comedy that somehow lands on its feet when it should fall on its face. In fact, it does fall on its face, more than once. There isn't a single thing in it that you don't know isn't coming. But the chemistry between Joe Pesci as a wiseguy-out-of-water and Marisa Tomei as his shrewd and adorable Brooklyn girlfriend, adrift in the Alabama legal system, keeps it worth watching. [13 Mar 1992, p.28]

My Cousin Vinny is not without its flaws: The movie is overlong, the middle section sags, and there are a couple of running gags that simply aren't very funny. And while the film's courtroom climax is preposterous, the last half hour is definitely worth sticking around for: Pesci makes it a hoot. [13 Mar 1992, p.8]

Taken a little too seriously, My Cousin Vinny can be seen as a celebration of the breadth and richness of the American landscape. Maybe the movie isn't exactly about that, but to enjoy it is, in a small way, to celebrate that richness. [13 Mar 1992, p.D3]

My Cousin Vinny is a mildly entertaining courtroom comedy that ultimately must be judged guilty of disappointment. Lynn and Launer's pop-movie mentality wastes a great idea and some terrific performances. [13 Mar 1992, p.10]

Vinny's humor is cooked to al dente perfection. And that ain't just whistling Dixie.

My Cousin Vinny would have been a moderately funny movie in any case. But with Joe Pesci in the leading role, the movie escalates several notches to a rough-and-tumble, exciting comedy and proves that Pesci is one of the most versatile actors in the business. [19 Mar 1992, p.6E]