Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

GazerRise Fantastic!

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

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

theowinthrop Hugh Grant is in someways a modern version of a comic actor who I have had problems with in viewing: Charles Butterworth. Butterworth would hem and haw, afraid of making some social faux pas while pursuing whatever business occupied his activities on screen. This diffidence while mildly amusing could get tedious after awhile. Similarly Grant will hesitate, and stammer a bit. But his English manners, and his good looks make his hesitancy far more easy to accept than Butterworth's. Certainly his good looks have made him an easy leading man type (whereas Butterworth always played in supporting roles).MICKEY BLUE EYES gives Grant far more to be nervous and hesitant about. He plays Michael Feldgate, a highly successful auctioneer at a leading house in Manhattan (his boss is Philip Cromwell (James Fox)). Michael has been romancing a schoolteacher named Gina Vitale (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and has finally decided to propose to her. Besides causing an unintentional series of uproars in a Chinese restaurant, he is surprised to find Gina less than enthusiastic. After he meets her father Frank Vitale (James Caan) he follows Gina home and learns the reason for Gina's lack of enthusiasm (though not lack of love). Frank is a member of a Mafia family headed by Vito Graziosi (Burt Young), and Gina was always afraid that if Michael and she married he'd be trapped into the Mafia way of life sooner or later.Uneasily Gina agrees to the wedding, with Michael insisting that with her assistance he can avoid any real problems from Graziosi and his gang. But soon the subtlety of the mobsters proves too much for Michael (with or without Gina's help). Graziosi realizes that auctioning art can be useful as a way of laundering dirty mob money (he can have debts paid by having various debtors settle what they owe by buying items the mob puts up at auction). And Michael soon finds he is auctioning art by Graziosi's violent mental case son Johnny (John Ventimiglia) that are setting records - records the F.B.I. are showing great interest in. While worrying about this, Michael is also under pressure of trying to present a good, respectable front for a potentially lucrative client. Somehow the mobsters and the F.B.I. just don't seem to help create this image.Michael finds that everything Gina suggests, or her father Frank tries to help with fails, and soon the Englishman finds he is in the middle of an unwanted killing - one that can set off a mob war. He also finds that he has to parade around town with his erst-while father-in-law as an out-of-town underworld torpedo named "Mickey Blue Eyes" (actually, "Young Mickey Blue Eyes" from Kansas City, as opposed to "Old Mickey Blue Eyes" his dead dad, and the original "Mickey Blue Eyes" from Chicago!). This includes burying a corpse in an overused waste land, and ordering steak in a restaurant where "Mickey" is barely understood talking a version of underworld English, and upsetting customers by his anti-English remarks and his constantly dropping his gun.The cast is wonderful, led by a continually drained Grant who can't find any way out of the deeper and deeper hole he is in, Caan who has found that he has a comfortable niche in the mob - but has somehow lost his daughter's trust, Tripplehorn who finds that she is bloodily closer to the mob than she ever expected or wanted to be, Young who is properly sinister but ruthlessly smart, and Fox who constantly trying to put the best face on the worst situations (like talking to his potential client about respectability, opening a door, and finding Grant shaking his behind in front of his fiancé!). Even that late budding comic "goon" actor Joe Viterelli (who played "Jelly" in the ANALYZE THIS and ANALYZE THAT films) has a nice moment where he watches a television commercial about a very strong adhesive tape that can even bind people's hands - and makes a note for future reference when he needs to bind some person's hands! Until the last comic twists of the plot, the film entertains, and is certainly worth a "10" out of "10" on the scale here.

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.

MartinHafer I really disliked this comedy--mostly because it just wasn't funny and Hugh Grant's performance was so forced and unbelievable. And this difficulty in his performance (I'll make no gratuitous jokes about his arrest) is due to the awfulness of the script and that he is asked to play way outside his range.Hugh is getting married, but his fiancée (Jeanne Tripplehorn) has a secret. She's the daughter of a big-time mobster (James Caan--who looks kind of weird in this film--what's with the makeup?)! Well, instead of finding this out and flying back to Britain (that would have been best in the long run), he sticks around because he loves her so much and he knows it will work out fine. It doesn't and I knew it wouldn't when, for laughs, he tries to talk like an American mobster--the comedic low-point of the film. It only got worse from there and I could tell by his pained expression that Grant desperately wanted the film to end.I recommend this film to no one. Neither dogs, children, adults or penguins--NO ONE! It's frightfully dull and unfunny and it's tough to spend as much money as the studio did and come up with THIS!