My Cousin Vinny is a 1992 American comedy film written by Dale Launer and directed by Jonathan Lynn. The film stars Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, Mitchell Whitfield, Lane Smith, Bruce McGill, and Fred Gwynne. This was Fred Gwynne's last film appearance before his death on July 2, 1993.
The film deals with two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and the comical attempts of a cousin, Vincent Gambini, a newly minted lawyer, to defend them. Much of the humor comes from the contrasting personalities of the brash Italian-American New Yorkers, Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa, and the more reserved Southern townspeople.
Lawyers have praised the comedy's realistic depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy. Pesci and Tomei received critical praise for their performances, and Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Plot2>
While driving through the fictional Beechum County, Alabama, NYU students and friends Billy Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) accidentally shoplift a can of tuna while stopping at a convenience store. After they leave the store, the clerk is shot and killed, and Billy and Stan are arrested in connection with the murder. Due to circumstantial evidence and a confession to shoplifting misconstrued as one to the shooting, Billy is charged with murder, and Stan is charged as an accessory. The pair call Billy's mother, who tells her son that there is an attorney in the family, his cousin Vinny (Joe Pesci). Vincent LaGuardia Gambini travels to Beechum County accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei). Although he is willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, newly admitted to the bar (after six attempts in six years) with no trial experience.
Vinny manages to fool the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne), about being experienced enough to take the case in a game of cat-and-mouse that progresses throughout the film. His ignorance of basic court procedures and dress code, as well as his abrasive and disrespectful attitude cause the judge to hold him in contempt. Much to his clients' consternation, Vinny does not cross-examine any of the witnesses in the probable cause hearing. Except for the murder weapon, it appears that the district attorney, Jim Trotter III (Lane Smith), has an airtight case that will inevitably lead to a conviction at the trial. After Vinny's poor showing at the hearing, Stan fires him and uses the public defender, John Gibbons (Austin Pendleton), and nearly convinces Billy to do the same. Vinny wittily asks for one more chance to prove himself.
The trial then opens with Vinny representing his cousin and Gibbons representing Stan. Despite some further missteps, including a gaudy secondhand cinema usher's uniform (an improvement on his bike leathers) and sleeping through Trotter's opening statement, Vinny shows that he can make up for his ignorance and inexperience with an aggressive and perceptive questioning style. After the public defender is shown to have a debilitating stammer, Vinny quickly and comprehensively discredits the testimony of the first witness (Maury Chaykin), a rebuttal revolving around grits. Billy's faith is restored, Stan fires the public defender, and Vinny finally gets some sleep while serving his contempt charges in jail.
Vinny's cross-examinations of the remaining two eyewitnesses are similarly effective, but on the trial's third day, Trotter produces a surprise witness, FBI analyst George Wilbur, who testifies that the pattern and chemical analysis of the tire marks left at the crime scene are identical to the tires on Billy's Buick Skylark. With only the lunch recess to prepare his cross-examination and unable to come up with a strong line of questioning, Vinny and Lisa quarrel over her photographs, apparently breaking their engagement. Shortly after the trial resumes, Vinny realizes that one of her photos holds the key to the case: the flat and even tire marks going over the curb reveal that Billy's car could not have been used for the getaway, since Billy's Skylark does not have the Positraction rear differential and independent rear suspension needed to make such marks. After requesting a records search from the local sheriff (Bruce McGill), Vinny drags Lisa (both Vinny and Lisa had worked as mechanics in her father's garage) into court to testify as his first witness. During Vinny's questioning, Lisa comes to the same conclusion and testifies that the only vehicle that could plausibly make the escape and be mistaken for Billy's 1964 Skylark is a 1963 Pontiac Tempest with the same color and tires. After re-calling George Wilbur as a witness to confirm this, Vinny re-calls the local sheriff, who has finished the records search. The sheriff testifies that two men resembling Billy and Stan were just arrested in another county for driving a stolen Pontiac Tempest, and were in possession of a gun of the same caliber used to kill the clerk. The defeated Trotter moves to dismiss all the charges, and the film ends with kudos trading and Vinny and Lisa bickering about their future wedding plans.
Cast
Filming
The courthouse scenes were filmed on a set based on the courthouse in the town square of Monticello, Georgia.
Reception
The film received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 84%, based on 51 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "The deft comic interplay between Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei helps to elevate My Cousin Vinny's predictable script, and the result is a sharp, hilarious courtroom comedy."
With a budget of $11 million, My Cousin Vinny was more successful than anyone had anticipated, grossing $52,929,168 domestically and $11,159,384 in the foreign markets, bringing its overall total to $64,088,552.
Marisa Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 65th Academy Awards in 1993. The film's screenwriter Dale Launer wrote a sequel; while Pesci was interested in filming it, Tomei was not.
Director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and lawyers have praised the accuracy of My Cousin Vinnyâ€â€Š'​s depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy, with one stating that "[t]he movie is close to reality even in its details. Part of why the film has such staying power among lawyers is because, unlike, say, A Few Good Men, everything that happens in the movie could happenâ€"and often does happenâ€"at trial". One legal textbook discusses the film in detail as an "entertaining [and] extremely helpful introduction to the art of presenting expert witnesses at trial for both beginning experts and litigators", and criminal defenders, law professors, and other lawyers use the film to demonstrate voir dire and cross examination.
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals judge Richard Posner praised My Cousin Vinny as being
particularly rich in practice tips: how a criminal defense lawyer must stand his ground against a hostile judge, even at the cost of exasperating the judge, because the lawyer's primary audience is the jury, not the judge; how cross-examination on peripheral matters can sow serious doubts about a witness's credibility; how props can be used effectively in cross-examination (the tape measure that demolishes one of the prosecution's eyewitnesses); how to voir dire, examine, and cross-examine expert witnesses; the importance of the Brady doctrine ... how to dress for a trial; contrasting methods of conducting a jury trial; and more.
A professor stated that "Vinny is terrible at the things we do teach in law school, but very good at the things we don't":
[How to] interview clients, to gather facts, to prepare a theory of a case, to negotiate, to know when to ask a question and when to remain quiet, to cross examine a witness forcefully (but with charm) in order to expose the weaknesses in their testimony
United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited My Cousin Vinny as an example of the principle that a client can choose his own lawyer. The authors of Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (2006) gave the film its highest rating along with several films based on real trials, such as Judgment at Nuremberg and Breaker Morant. In 2008 the ABA Journal ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies", and in 2010 ranked Pesci's character as #12 on its list of "The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)".
Lynn, an opponent of capital punishment, believes that the film expresses an anti-death penalty message without "preaching to people", and demonstrates the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Lawyers find the film appealing, according to the director, because "there aren't any bad guys", with the judge, prosecutor, and Vinny all seeking justice. Lynn stated that both he and Launer sought to accurately depict the legal process in Vinny, favorably comparing it to Trial and Error, for which he could not make what he believed were necessary changes.
Album
Pesci later reprised the Vincent LaGuardia Gambini character for his album, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You, which contains the song "Yo, Cousin Vinny." The album cover portrays Pesci in a red suit similar to the usher suit he wore in the film.
See also
- Trial film
- Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai
References
External links
- My Cousin Vinny at the Internet Movie Database
- My Cousin Vinny at AllMovie
- My Cousin Vinny at Box Office Mojo
- My Cousin Vinny at Rotten Tomatoes
- Transcript of the trial proceedings
