Michael blunders ahead anyway. He meets her dad (James Caan), who runs a restaurant where the customers all seem supplied by Central Casting, Gangster Division. The inimitable Joe Viterelli, who was so funny as the bodyguard in 'Analyze This,' is even on hand. Michael's slow to catch on: 'Your dad is some kind of mob caterer?' And he asks the wrong questions for the right reasons ('Are you mostly family?'). But before she realizes what's happening, her dad has taken a liking to Michael, and the wedding is on.
Complications. The big boss (nicely played by Burt Young) doesn't know the real story. There are misunderstandings. Michael has to pose as a mobster to save his life. He gets lessons in pronunciation, to learn to talk like a gangster, and these scenes are so badly handled by Grant that the movie derails and never recovers. Either he can't do a plausible mob accent, or he thought it wasn't called for. The squawks and gurgles he produces, both during the lessons and later, are so strangled and peculiar that we wonder why the other actors don't just break off and wait for the next take.
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- The Movie Show reviews Mickey Blue Eyes. The Movie Show Episode 38 1999. AIRED ON 24 November 1999. EXPIRES ON 31 December 2030. 3 Sep 2020 - 3:07pm.
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Grant is wrong for the role anyway. He has a good line in charm and wit, he can play intelligent and vulnerable, and he's likable. But there's never a moment here where he convinces us that he's truly desperate or in danger. He drops into the movie like a dinner guest; we're reminded of somebody unflappable like David Niven, although Niven could play desperate when he had to.
Jeanne Tripplehorn is sufficiently convincing as the woman who loves him, although it must have seemed odd to her, being so intense in the face of his cool. Caan and Young are right at home (Young's thin lips releasing each word grudgingly), and Viterelli is a mountain of plausibility. But without a strong center, there's not enough for them to play against.
Precisely how long audiences will continue to be won over by Hugh Grant's grand coiffure and calculated script-fumbling remains uncertain, but this film aims to bank on his trademark charm while the ruse lasts.
Returning to the New York locale of Extreme Measures, Grant swaps scalpel for gavel as Michael Felgate who, in between fielding bids for distinguished auction house Cromwells, is summoning up the courage to propose to schoolteacher Gina Vitale (Tripplehorn). Who freaks. Not because she's unwilling, but because - unknown to Michael - her 'family' isn't exactly your common or garden variety, with dad Frank (Caan) a prominent member of the Graziosi crime organisation. Still, blood's thicker than water, especially when it's spreading slowly across the floor.
From this swiftly worked premise spins an escalating comic farce, handled well for the most part by fledgling feature director Makin. As MichaelÆs vow to remain unsullied falters with a reluctant favour for Uncle Vito (Young), Grant enjoys a couple of showcase set pieces, the standout being a scene in which he creates the fictional titular gangster to impress two rival heavies.
An excellent Caan offers more than cliche or caricature as Frank - who's father first, mobster second - and with Tripplehorn a delightful watch too (on any level), the trio succeed in the key task of making you care about their predicament. So the comedy becomes engaging, not just a series of pratfalls, while also tempered as too knockabout or frivolous by Young's menacing turn as the Graziosi boss.
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