My Cousin Vinny Blu-ray delivers great video and solid audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Two carefree pals traveling through Alabama are
mistakenly arrested and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a
lawyer - Vincent, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. Vinny's never been in court - or in Alabama - and when he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!
We gonna run enough electricity through him to light up Birmingham.
The 1980s and early 1990s were one of Comedy's golden eras, and Director Jonathan Lynn's
(Clue) My Cousin Vinny ranks up there with several of the uncontested gems that
have come to define that timeframe. Just as funny, well-made, and superbly acted as Ferris Bueller's Day
Off, Stripes, or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, My Cousin Vinny
may not be a watershed movie for the genre but it's certainly one of its more memorable, serving
up a brand of humor that's somewhat understated but far funnier than the more direct, grotesque,
and intelligence-insulting style that's come to define the genre for the past decade. With a smart
script and a wonderful collection of talent in front of the camera -- including Marisa Tomei, (The Wrestler) in her
Oscar-winning performance -- My Cousin Vinny hasn't lost a laugh since its debut some 17
years ago.
Vinny and clients eagerly await the posting of the latest Blu-ray.com review.
On a road trip through the South in search of that perfect college, New York-based buddies Billy
(Ralph Macchio, The Karate Kid) and Stan (Mitchell Whitfield) find themselves in The
Middle of Nowhere, Alabama. After an innocent stop at a convenience store to stock up on some
goodies for the road, the two are pulled over at gunpoint
and hauled down to the local lockup. After an awkward back-and-forth where they believe their
troubles to revolve around nothing more than a can of tuna that accidentally ended up in Billy's
pocket, they find themselves
charged with the murder of the
convenience store clerk. Desperate for help but unable to afford a top attorney, Billy's mother
suggests they contact Vinny (Joe Pesci, Casino), a family
cousin and lawyer. Unfortunately, Vinny doesn't exactly come as advertised. He's never actually
tried a murder case, or any case for that matter. In fact, he's never set foot in a courtroom, but
he does have a law degree; it just took him six tries to pass the bar exam. With nowhere else to
turn, the boys can only hope that Vinny and his longtime fiance Mona Lisa Vito (Tomei) can prove
their innocence before the state proves their guilt.
Like most films, My Cousin Vinny doesn't particularly innovate insofar as the
nuts-and-bolts
of its plot is concerned. Where the film does innovate is in its delivery of the material and ability
to place a fresh spin on an old tale. It takes two cinema staples -- the so-called "fish out of
water"
Comedy and the courtroom Drama -- and meshes them together for one of the more
uproariously
funny one-of-a-kind hybrid pictures ever unleashed on the Comedy-minded movie-going public.
The humor stems from all sorts of different places, most notably from both the absurdity of the
entire experience and Vinny's dealings with not only the regulations of an Alabama courtroom but
with Southern culture as he sorts out the local dialect (that element a two-way street that
popularized the Joe Pesci way of saying "youths"), cuisine, and generally relaxed way of life.
Although My Cousin Vinny -- and most other "fish out of water" movies -- relies heavily
on pitting one stereotype against another, the film never falls victim to simply tossing opposing
characters into a blender and hoping for the best. Though stereotypes define the basic structure
of each character -- the by-the-book judge, the uppity defense attorney, the flashy Brooklyn
defender, and the loud-mouthed but big-hearted girlfriend -- the script and the actors both paint
them as more involved and complex than their cardboard veneer may suggest. Each character
bursts forth from the mold and makes for an interesting and somewhat complex persona that far
supersedes in quality the mere static and generic figures so many lesser films toss onto the
screen hoping to only induce a few cheap laughs and
keep the plot moving rather than going the extra mile and creating a core group of characters
that audiences will come to love and, by extension, make the movie all the better.
Moving past such a collection of otherwise-stereotypical characters and breathing real life into
them requires a cast that's talented enough for the task, and My Cousin Vinny gets its
cast absolutely right. Though there are no megastars to speak of in the film -- Ralph Macchio at
the time probably the best known for his roles as Daniel in the Karate Kid films -- each
player brings their respective characters to riveting life and, just as important, they mesh
wonderfully
together to make every scene a winner. It's easy to paint either Joe Pesci or the Oscar-winning
Marisa Tomei as the film's only standout characters; Pesci's performance is spot-on and, like
Tomei's if only for her Oscar, a career-defining effort that sees the actor in his element without
going too far over the top as seen in the final three Lethal Weapon films.
While each of those two bring playful energy and a strong sense of comedic timing both verbal
and physical to their parts, the film's several secondary characters all shine in their respective
roles. The
aforementioned Ralph Macchio makes the most of his screentime, his performance genuine and
convincing throughout as a young man that finds his lawyer's antics none-too-amusing as he can
only sit idly by as his future lies in the hands of a bumbling and untested lawyer. His best scene
comes early on when he plays a one-sided conversation with a panicked mother over the
telephone after his arrest. Also of note are the efforts of a trio of character actors that shine in
their roles -- Bruce McGill as the town's sheriff, Lane Smith as the district attorney, and Fred
Gwynne as Judge Haller.
My Cousin Vinny makes its Blu-ray debut with a rather strong-across-the-board 1080p,
1.85:1-framed transfer. Detail is appreciably high in both foregrounds and backgrounds. Clothing,
from Vinny's leather jacket to the judge's zip-up robe, look just fine. Small, medium, and large
object detail, too, looks good. Everyday items such as chairs, a picnic table, or the benches and
other wooden adornments found in the courtroom take on a fairly realistic and pleasant appearance.
Though not eye-popping in intensity, colors impress throughout and appear lifelike and neither
overly bright nor terribly faded. Several of the courtroom scenes do look a bit hazy. The transfer
sports a moderately heavy layer of grain but it does lend to the image a fine film-like appearance.
Flesh tones are stable and remain a rather neutral appearance without veering too heavily away
from a shade of red. Likewise, blacks never seem overly problematic. My Cousin Vinny
makes for yet another in the ever-growing list of quality 1080p catalogue transfers from Fox.
My Cousin Vinny testifies on Blu-ray via a DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music as
heard at the beginning of the film positively blares, but dialogue in subsequent sequences sounds a
bit small in comparison. Things even out nicely afterwards, however. Music continues to play at a
rather high volume but offers a fine deal of clarity across the front, with a nice helping of rear
channel support throughout the entirety of the two-hour experience. Sound effects, particularly
those that flesh out the running gag of the offending noises that wake up Vinny and Mona Lisa all
through the night, sound just fine and appropriately lifelike, from the factory whistle to the
rumbling train that seems to steam through the entire soundstage with a hefty amount of bass. At
its core, however, My Cousin Vinny is a dialogue-driven Comedy, and save for the few
moments as noted above, it never sounds muffled or otherwise unintelligible. Still, the disc does a
fine job of sprucing things up with both the music and effects, making this a track that's not
particularly noteworthy but certainly up to the challenge and more than satisfactory for the film it
accompanies.
Unfortunately, My Cousin Vinny takes the stand with only a commentary track and a
few advertisements for the film. The commentary features Director Jonathan Lynn speaking rather
dryly on a plethora of subjects, including how he was offered the job, the film's look and the
shooting techniques, its cast, shooting locations, Marisa Tomei's Oscar, and more, mentioning and
defining several filmmaking techniques along the way. The disc also features a pair of My
Cousin Vinny theatrical trailers (480p, 1:55 & 1:24) and two 480p TV spots: "Up to His Ears"
(0:32) and "Lover" (0:32).
Though a bit far-fetched and hard-to-swallow if taken even remotely seriously, My Cousin
Vinny works wonders as a take-it-for-what-it-is, sit-back-and-relax experience meant to tickle
the funny bone and allow viewers to leave their troubles at the door and escape into a two-hour
topsy-turvy big-city-meets-small-country tale of justice, love, and laughs. Though a Comedy first
and foremost, My Cousin Vinny also enthralls at several points throughout during its heated
courtroom scenes, even if said scenes are dotted by the film's trademark humor that serves up
gut-busting laughs through the minutiae of the overreaching absurdity of the situation. With a cast
that, to a man, immerses themselves in the world and the characters they portray, My Cousin
Vinny is one of the better Comedies to come from the genre's last great era. 20th Century
Fox's Blu-ray release of My Cousin Vinny delivers a quality 1080p transfer and a fine
lossless soundtrack, but the disappointing lack of extras might turn off some potential buyers.
Nevertheless, this disc comes recommended based on the strength of the film and the sound
audio/video presentation.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced the technical specs and special features for the upcoming Blu-ray release of 'My Cousin Vinny', which is due to hit store shelves on August 4. Video will be presented in 1.85:1 1080p AVC accompanied by a 5.1 DTS-HD ...
In an early announcement to retailers, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has revealed a number of upcoming Blu-ray titles due to hit store shelves later this year. On June 30th, they are planning to release 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - Unleashed and ...
