This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the premiere of the film My Cousin Vinny and, to commemorate the occasion, our friends over at Abnormal Use have invited legal bloggers to post their thoughts on the film. Abnormal Use itself will feature a series of posts over the week, including interviews with Vinny’s producer and screenwriter. You should check them out.
To me, Vinny is not only a great courtroom movie; it’s a great comedy. I think the comedic elements that make it so great come from the fact that we have two fishes out of water here — Brooklynite Vinny and the befuddled Beechum County citizens who are forced to deal with him. Both sides are aware of their difference, yet neither condescends to the other; they are all humble, likeable people searching for common ground. At one particularly bungling moment, Vinny’s fiancee mocks him, “Gotta let everyone know you’re a tourist.” As Vinny replies, “What are you, a f—— world traveler?” Vinny’s full of braggadocio and confidence, but he doesn’t think he knows it all.
But the heart of comedy is an elusive subject and too often, in talking about it, the comedy slips through the critic’s fingers. And so I think, rather than analyzing what makes Vinnysuch a hilarious movie, I’ll stick to what I should know best: how Vinny rates as a courtroom movie, in terms of its courtroom realism.
No movie makes perfect marks on this score. The urge for screenwriters and producers to crank up the courtroom drama always trumps the impulse to want to get it right. But some get it a lot better than others. Several months ago, while laid up, I was watching the Ed Norton/Richard Gere courtroom drama Primal Fear and it just got so many things wrong — evidentiary issues, the judge’s rulings, etc. — that the movie held zero entertainment value for me because the lawyer part of my brain just couldn’t suspend disbelief.
Vinny