Amazon.com video review:
When two Italian-American boys from New York are falsely accused of murder
in a small Alabama town, they call for a lawyer--but the only lawyer they
know is their cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci), who made six attempts before he
passed his bar exam. My Cousin Vinny is a classic fish-out-of-water
comedy; the flimsy plot about clearing the two boys and solving the murder
is just a hook to support a lot of culture-clash humor. Thanks to the
strong cast of character actors like Fred Gwynne, Austin Pendleton, and
Lane Smith, it's pretty funny--even old-hat jokes about Brooklyn versus Southern accents come to life. Pesci has played a few too many schticky
characters, but this time it works. There's just enough humanity in his
caricature to make Vinny likable and entertaining. When the movie was
released, there was controversy about whether Marisa Tomei, playing
Vinny's big-haired and black-leather-wearing fiancée, deserved to win the
best supporting actress Oscar (she beat out Judy Davis, Joan Plowright, Miranda
Richardson, and Vanessa Redgrave); but seeing her performance on its own,
it's a comic marvel and worthy of honor. --Bret Fetzer
