Synopsis
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 Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend, to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!
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Cast
- Joe PesciVincent 'Vinny' Gambini
- Ralph MacchioWilliam 'Billy' Gambini
- Marisa TomeiMona Lisa Vito
- Mitchell WhitfieldStan Rothenstein
- Fred GwynneJudge Chamberlain Haller
- Lane SmithJim Trotter III
- Austin PendletonJohn Gibbons
- Bruce McGillSheriff Farley
- Maury ChaykinSam Tipton
- Paulene MyersConstance Riley
Recommendations
- 90
The New York Times
My Cousin Vinny is easily the most inventive and enjoyable American film farce in a long time, even during those extended patches when it seems to be marking time or when it continues with a running gag that can't stay the distance. The film has a secure and sophisticated sense of what makes farce so delicious. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
My Cousin Vinny is a terrific variation on the fish-out-of-water/man-from-Mars story formula. Starring Joe Pesci as a slicker in the land of grits, My Cousin Vinny should tickle funny bones in every region and ring out a green spring for 20th Century Fox at the box office. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Clocking in at just under two hours, MY COUSIN VINNY moves at an extremely leisurely pace for a Hollywood farce. But that's just one indication of what makes this appealingly quirky comedy stand apart from more run-of-the-mill fare. - 70
Time Out London
Pesci's variation on New Jersey machismo (vulnerable in this case) isn't enough to fill a comedy; but Dale Launer's script luckily provides some fine routines for the supporting cast, notably the scene-stealing Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito, Pesci's sharp-tongued girlfriend. It's a small, surprisingly gentle affair, prone to fits and starts, but fun. - 70
Variety
Tomei, sashaying through the proceedings as kind of a sexy hood ornament, creates a buoyant chemistry with her combative boyfriend. - 70
Washington Post
The movie, however, is Pesci's. In that courtroom, he gets on a roll and stays rolling until the end. There's no one better with that New York-New Jersey corridor accent. - 70
Los Angeles Times
Given the temptations to goof it up, Pesci's performance in My Cousin Vinny is something of a triumph. As Vincent Gambini, a swaggering pint-sized New York lawyer who only recently passed the bar on his sixth try, Pesci modulates his usual psycho-nuttiness and gives it some recognizably human, even melancholy, undertones. The movie is a very mixed bag, but it's not quite the dumb fest that the TV spots make it out to be. Pesci gives Vinny's ultimate vindication a note of bittersweet triumph. - 63
Chicago Sun-Times
My Cousin Vinny is a movie that meanders along going nowhere in particular, and then lightning strikes. I didn't get much involved in it, and yet individual moments and some of the performances were very funny. It's the kind of movie home video was invented for: Not worth the trip to the theater, but slam it into the VCR and you get your rental's worth.
