AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Tetrady not as good as all the hype

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Python Hyena Mickey Blue Eyes (1999): Dir: Kelly Makin / Cast: Hugh Grant, James Caan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Joe Viterelli, Burt Young: Boy, did they ever rush this laughless trash out quickly after the success of Analyze This. Both comedies regards gangsters torn between their professional and personal lives. Title is totally lame but it is the name given to Hugh Grant who is an art auction dealer shocked when Jeanne Tripplehorn refuses to marry him. At first I figured it was because this is a shitty movie, but as it turns out her father is a gangster and she fears that he will have Grant running illegal favours. This indeed does occur and Grant ends up auctioning very expensive paintings. Then a series of events lead to Grant being blamed for the death of the son of another mob leader. Although the setup is amusing the delivery is repetitious with a contrived ending. Kelly Makin does fine as director but this is nowhere near as funny as her earlier comedy Brain Candy. While Grant pulls off humour effectively James Caan as his father-in-law is typecast and predictable. Tripplehorn labours under uninteresting material and is involved in an ending that is too stupid for words. Then we have Joe Viterelli as a carry over from Analyze This as if he just couldn't play any other role. Misfire comedy laden with clichés. It is enough to make Mickey close his blue eyes in order to erase the memory. Score: 2 ½ / 10

Amy Adler Michael (Hugh Grant) is an art dealer/auctioneer for a Manhattan firm called Cromwell's, a knock-off of Sotheby's. He has a good eye for art and is also a great auction man, as he can liven up any sale with his dry jokes. Good fortune has also smiled on him in the romance department. He has been dating lovely Gina (Jeanne Tripplehorn) for three months and is ready to pop the question. Yet, when he proposes over dinner, Gina starts crying and bolts out of the restaurant. It is not the response Michael expected. But, he learns soon enough about Gina's misgivings. Although she is a public school teacher, Gina is also the daughter of a mobster (James Caan) and the niece of the godfather of the crime family. She fears that Michael will be compromised and drawn into a life of crime if he marries her. Michael insists that he has a strong backbone and will never break the law. Yet, the day after Gina puts on her engagement ring, an ugly and ridiculous painting by her cousin shows up at Cromwell's for the auction. To Michael's surprise, it sells. But, it is part of a money laundering scheme and the FBI shows up at Michael's office. Soon after, Michael's resolve is again compromised....and again and again. Will Michael and Gina find a way out of the mob existence? This film could have been dismissed as a meager mob comedy if not for the talents of Grant. He turns the film into a true winner with his deft touch for humor. Just watch him try to dump a dead body in a trash bag but tell the neighbor lady that he is "merely getting rid of all the foods with sugar" in his refrigerator, having been recently diagnosed as a diabetic. What fun! Watching him attempt to talk like a Brooklyn native is quite a stitch, too. Caan, Tripplehorn and, especially James Fox as the auction house owner, also play their parts well. The production values are high, as the film sports nice costumes, good settings, and zestful scene changes. No, it is not the funniest mob comedy of all time, and definitely not in the same category as Married to the Mob. Yet, if you love romantic comedies with a twist and/or you adore Grant, you will find this film very worthwhile. Make a date with Mickey soon, very soon.

zardoz-13 "Mickey Blue Eyes" (*1/2 OUT OF ****) is an offer you can refuse.Hugh Grant deserves better than he gets from this atrocious, uninspired Mafia parody produced by his girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley for their production company Simian Films. Directed by Kelly ("National Lampoon's Senior Trip") Makin and written by Adam ("Little Big League") Scheinman and Robert ("The Cure") Kuhn, "Mickey Blue Eyes" flounders as a soggy fish-out-of-water farce about a bumbling Brit (Hugh Grant) at a New York art auction house who proposes to a pretty school teacher (Jeanne Tripplehorn) whose father (James Caan) holds a high ranking position in a sadistic Mafia family. Since "The Godfather" made La Cosa Nostra movies a sure thing with audiences, Hollywood has produced a line up of memorable mob movies. Now that most of the big-time Mafioso are sitting in jail, the appeal of the genre has spiraled.Happily, the success of not only "Analyze This" but also HBO's "The Sopranos" has given Family-oriented entertainment a new lease on life. Sadly, "Mickey Blue Eyes" lacks the hilarity of either "Analyze This" or "The Sopranos." The idea of an innocent entangled with the mob, as Grant's adorably clumsy English auctioneer Michael Felgate becomes, breaks no new ground. Moreover, Michael doesn't get to milk as much comedy from his mafia masquerade as Billy Crystal in "Analyze This." Worse, the mob gags are both too few and far between to get more than an occasional guffaw. The stereotypical treatment of Italian-Americans as pizza-faced gangsters doesn't help. Ultimately, Makin and company cannot spruce up the clichés that have been recycled ad nauseam.The early scenes promise more than the later ones deliver. Sloppy scripting by Scheinman, Kuhn, and an uncredited Hugh Grant sink this comedy in the wet cement that the mob reserves for canaries. Michael makes a living as the manager for Cromwell's Art House in Manhattan, the chief rival of Sotheby's, but Michael's business poses little threat to the giant. Later, he proposes to Gina Vitale (Tripplehorn), but she rejects him. She fears that the family and her father will corrupt Michael. Sure enough, her fears come true as Frank (James Caan) and mobster kingpin Vito Graziosi (Burt Young, trimmer than he ever looked in the "Rocky" movies) use Michael's auction house to launder money. While Michael struggles to keep Gina in the dark about his deals with the don, the FBI shows up to grill him about mob ties.Meanwhile, Vito's hot-headed son Johnny (John Ventimiglia) goes ballistic when Michael cheats him out of a $100 thousand dollars, so that he can stop a misinformed widow with a hearing problem from buying one of Johnny's gory paintings. Johnny tries to whack Michael. Ironically, Johnny's bullet ricochets and kills him. Frank covers up the killing by framing another mob. When the truth emerges, Vito forces Frank to gun down Michael at his wedding reception with Gina. The Scheinman & Kuhn screenplay teems with cretinous characters. How can Michael and Frank overlook Johnny's car, parked as it is in front of Michael's apartment, when they lug off Johnny's corpse to bury it. Vito figures out that Johnny died in Michael's apartment, because his thugs found his son's car parked in front of it. Further, the surprise ending is too implausible and convoluted to be funny.Comedy grows out of incongruity, but "Mickey Blue Eyes" boasts little incongruity. Admittedly, Hugh Grant is at the top of his self-depreciating form. Nobody can match his stammer, his clever witticisms, and appear as fashionably bewildered. Meanwhile, James Caan, famous as Sonny Corelone in "The Godfather," doesn't evoke the same presence as either fellow "Godfather" co-stars Marlon Brando did in "The Freshman" or Al Pacino in "Donnie Brasco." The chemistry between Jeanne Tripplehorn and Hugh Grant never comes to a boil. They have their best moment in a Chinese restaurant when Felgate spikes a fortune cookie with a marriage proposal. The supporting cast is a who's who of Mafia character actors, especially Joe Viterelli who played in "Analyze This.""Mickey Blue Eyes" is not a sure thing.

godgirl Don't expect a serious film, but do expect some unexpectedly hilarious scenes - others have mentioned the Chinese restaurant scene, but the steakhouse meeting, the disastrous introduction of the toff client to the auction house, the embarrassingly drunken boss and Grant's character's subtly amusing auctioneering techniques make for an amusing and enjoyable lighthearted film.A few twists at the end keep things rolling, pastiche and cliché are helped along by some genuinely funny scenes, Caan and Grant work well together as father in law and prospective son in law, the slight flaw to the whole credibility of the film has to be the lack of closeness in the film between father and daughter which is often implied but never portrayed adequately.I laughed more than I imagined I could though, as some scenes were highly comical. It may not be thought provoking, mentally or emotionally demanding, but it's definitely on the better side of light hearted comedy - it avoids farce and cliché with some subtle substance and style.