Primary navigation
Mickey Blue Eyes
USA/UK 1999
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Englishman Michael Felgate works in New York as auctioneer for art dealers Cromwell's. He's in love with high-school teacher Gina Vitale, but when he asks her to marry him she reacts badly. She reveals that her father Frank Vitale is a member of the Graziosi crime family, headed by Vito Graziosi. She's certain that Michael will become corrupted by her father and his associates. Michael meets Frank, Vito, Vito's son Johnny and other mobsters, but assures Gina he'll remain uncorrupted. They become engaged.
Unbidden, Vito leans on some truck drivers who have been messing up Cromwell's deliveries. In return, he expects Michael to auction one of Johnny's terrible paintings as a money-laundering scam. Michael reluctantly does so. Vito has Sotheby's burnt down and wants another of Johnny's paintings auctioned. Through a mix-up, it sells way over its reserve price. Suspecting Michael of deception, Johnny beats him up in front of Gina. Gina accidentally shoots Johnny dead.
Michael tells Frank he shot Johnny and gets him to help him dispose of the body. Meeting some other mobsters while doing so, Frank introduces Michael as 'Mickey Blue Eyes', an out-of-town hitman. Vito sees through Frank's evasions and insists he shoots Michael at the wedding. Frank and Michael appeal to the FBI, who set up a fake shooting to incriminate Vito. This misfires, and Gina is shot instead. Vito is arrested. In the ambulance Gina, who had arranged her own fake shooting, revives and forgives Michael for his deceptions.
Review
A few years back, hard on the heels of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hugh Grant starred in another Mike Newell film, an adaptation of Beryl Bainbridge's novel An Awfully Big Adventure. An uneven but atmospheric movie, it featured Grant's most unexpected performance to date - as a supercilious, manipulative theatre director, utterly uningratiating and far removed from the loveable ditherer of Four Weddings. Hugh Grant made a far more interesting villain than hero. Advance accounts of Mickey Blue Eyes, in which he portrays a Mafioso - or at least someone pretending to be a Mafioso - raised hopes that he might once again be playing nasty.
No such luck. Grant does indeed briefly impersonate the supposedly lethal Mickey Blue Eyes; but the whole point of the joke - and a pretty thin one it is - is that he's quite useless at it, unable even to produce a passable American accent. That apart, it's back to good old loveable ineptitude. We even get a gag about floppy hair.
Grant's performance, though, fits snugly into a film which mostly relies on well-worn stereotypes. All the old comic clichés about New York mobsters being folksy, murderous and pasta-loving are trotted out - and were better done anyway in Andrew Bergman's The Freshman, from which Mickey Blue Eyes lifts chunks of plot. Just to be culturally even-handed, we're also treated to a painfully overdone display of English silly-assery from James Fox. Most of the rest of the cast get submerged in the backwash, with James Caan and Jeanne Tripplehorn both looking lost - though there's a neat cameo from Scott Thompson (Hank's gay sidekick in The Larry Sanders Show) as a puppyishly eager FBI agent. And, as the resident godfather, the veteran Burt Young craftily steals a scene or two.
The best of the film comes early on. Grant's establishing scene in the auction room is capably handled, and there's a funny, well-timed episode in a Chinese restaurant. Thereafter the plot becomes tiresomely over-contrived, with a particularly inane subplot involving a deaf old lady (who of course drops her hearing aid at a crucial moment). Assured comic direction might have overcome some of the weak scripting, but Kelly Makin, previously known for Kids in the Hall Brain Candy, turns in a lacklustre job, with the final big set piece - the protracted shoot-out at the wedding - especially ill-handled.
The ragged pacing may partly be down to last-minute excisions: judging from the press material some bedroom action between Grant and Tripplehorn has gone missing, which might at least have given us a raunchier, less anodyne movie. If this had been a far darker comedy in which Grant's character, like Al Pacino's in The Godfather Part II, finds within himself a capacity for viciousness and violence, that could have been a Hugh Grant performance worth watching.
Credits
- Producers
- Elizabeth Hurley
- Charles Mulvehill
- Screenplay
- Mark Lawrence
- Adam Scheinman
- Robert Kuhn
- Director of Photography
- Donald E. Thorin
- Editor
- David Freeman
- Production Designer
- Gregory P. Keen
- Music
- Basil Poledouris
- ©CR Films, LLC
- Production Companies
- Castle Rock Entertainment presents a Simian Films production
- Associate Producer
- Karin Smith
- Production Co-ordinator
- Betty Chin
- Unit Production Managers
- Ginger Sledge
- 2nd Unit:
- Charles B. Mulvehill
- Location Manager
- Drew Dillard
- Post-production
- UK Supervisor:
- Stephen Barker
- LA Supervisor:
- Tricia Miles
- Co-ordinator:
- Sara Woodhatch
- 2nd Unit Director
- David Makin
- Assistant Directors
- Richard Patrick
- Lisa M. Rowe
- Michael Smith
- 2nd Unit:
- Michael Samson
- Christo Morse
- Stacey Beneville
- Script Supervisors
- Beth Tyler
- 2nd Unit:
- Sheila Saldron
- Casting
- Laura Rosenthal
- Associate:
- Ali Farrell
- Voice:
- Brendan Donnison
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- David Makin
- Camera Operator
- Don Reddy
- Steadicam Operators
- Larry McConkey
- Andy Casey
- Spacecam Operator
- Steve Koster
- Special Effects
- Albert Griswold
- Art Director
- Tom Warren
- Set Decorator
- Susan Kaufman
- Production Illustrators
- Kelly G. Brine
- Brick Mason
- Costume Designer
- Ellen Mirojnick
- Costume Supervisors
- Deirdre N. Williams
- Benjamin Wilson
- Anne Gorman
- Costume Co-ordinator
- Goldalee Semel
- 2nd Unit Wardrobe
- Daniel J. Adkins
- Make-up
- Key Artist:
- Lynn Campbell
- 2nd Artist:
- Trish Heine
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Wayne Herndon
- Title Design
- Chris Allies
- Titles/Opticals
- Peerless Camera Company
- Additional Music
- Wolfgang Hammerschmid
- Orchestral Leader
- Rolf Wilson
- Orchestrations
- Steven Scott Smalley
- Music Supervisor
- Margot Core
- Music Editor
- Dominic Gibbs
- Music Mixer/Recordist
- Geoff Foster
- Music Consultant
- Arlene Fishbach
- Soundtrack
- "I Don't Know Why But I Do" by Paul Gayten, Robert Guidry, performed by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry; "On an Evening in Roma" by Umberto Bertini, Alessandro Taccani, performed by Dean Martin; "Elisir", "Come di" by/performed by Paolo Conte; "Theme from a Summer Place" by Max Steiner, performed by Percy Faith and His Orchestra; "We Are Family" by Bernard Edwards, Nile Rodgers, performed by Sister Sledge; "C'est Magnifique" by Cole Porter, performed by Nelson Riddle; "Just in Time" by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne, performed by Frank Sinatra; "I'm Leavin' It All up to You" by Donald Harris, Terry Dewey Jr,; "Just a Gigolo" by Leonello Casucci, Irving Caesar, performed by Louis Prima; "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" by James Cavanaugh, Russ Morgan, Larry Stock, performed by James Caan; "Love Connection" by Larry Grossman; "Violino Tzigano" by Cesare Andrea Bixio, Bixio Cherubini, performed by Achille Togliani; "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green, Willie Mitchell, Al Jackson Jr, performed by Al Green; "Mambo Italiano" by Bob Merrill, performed by Rosemary Clooney; "Your Picture" by Robert Guidry, performed by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry; "Guida e Luisa Nostalgico Swing" from "81/2" by/performed by Nino Rota; "Let's Stick Together" by Wilbert Harrison, performed by Bryan Ferry; "Luna Mezzo Mare" by Paolo Citarella, performed by Edward Bilous; "We Are the Champions" by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen; "Buena Sera Senorita" by Carl Sigman, Peter DeRose, performed by Louis Prima
- Production Sound Mixer
- Danny Michael
- Re-recording Mixers
- John Hayward
- Richard Pryke
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Martin Evans
- Dialogue Editor
- John Cochrane
- ADR
- Mixer, NY:
- Peter Waggoner
- Foley
- Artists:
- Pauline Griffiths
- Paula Boram
- Recordist:
- Edward Colyer
- Editor:
- Peter Holt
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Peter Bucossi
- 2nd Unit:
- Norman Douglass
- Helicopter Pilot
- Al Cerullo
- Cast
- Hugh Grant
- Michael Felgate
- James Caan
- Frank Vitale
- Jeanne Tripplehorn
- Gina Vitale
- Burt Young
- Vito Graziosi
- James Fox
- Philip Cromwell
- Joe Viterelli
- Vinnie
- Gerry Becker
- Agent Connell
- Maddie Corman
- Carol
- Tony Darrow
- Angelo
- Paul Lazar
- Ritchie Vitale
- Vincent Pastore
- Al
- Frank Pellegrino
- Sante
- Scott Thompson
- Agent Lewis
- John Ventimiglia
- Johnny Graziosi
- Margaret Devine
- Helen
- Beatrice Winde
- Mrs Horton
- Mark Margolis
- Gene Morganson
- Helen Lloyd Breed
- Emily Basset
- Carmine Parisi
- Luigi
- Sybil Lines
- Caroline Cromwell
- Alexis Brentani
- Rose Caiola
- Felicia Scarangello
- bridesmaids
- Joseph R. Gannascoli
- Gina's doorman
- Rocco Musacchia
- Carmine
- John DiBenedetto
- Harold Green
- Bruno Gioiello
- technician
- Rich Topol
- FBI chief ? truck
- Frank Senger
- delivery driver
- Lori Tan Chinn
- Chinese waitress
- Marsha Dietlein
- woman
- Steve Mellor
- FBI chief ? leader
- John DiResta
- traffic cop
- Ephraim Benton
- boy student
- Ed Wheeler
- reporter
- Aida Turturro
- waitress
- Tony Sirico
- Risolli man 1
- Lorri Bagley
- Antoinette
- Brian Davies
- priest
- Melissa Marsala
- Carla
- Joe Rigano
- Mr Risolli
- Michael Kennealy
- Jeffrey
- Leonard Sessa
- Andy Redmond
- FBI chiefs
- Chris Mcginn
- tourist woman
- David McConeghey
- tourist man
- Stephen Dym
- Cromwell employee
- Shelagh Ratner
- Tom King
- art patrons
- Sara Colton
- Kevin Kean Murphy
- auction bidders
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby digital
- Colour/Prints by Technicolor