Paul J. Nemecek This past summer was a record year for box office grosses in the film industry. Between the thoroughly predictable success of Star Wars: Phantom Menace and the completely unpredictable success of Blair Witch Project it's been a good summer for moviemakers. The two films mentioned above probably owe more to their marketing departments than their creative genius, but there were others that were charming (Notting Hill) and/or innovative (The Sixth Sense). Alas, as we reach the end of the summer season, we are left to sift through the wretched refuse that remains. This brings us face to face with Mickey Blue Eyes.Hugh Grant plays the title character, more commonly known as Michael Felgate. Michael is in love with Gina Vitale (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Early in the film, he takes her out to dinner where he pops the question--in one of the few truly funny scenes in the movie. He knows she loves him, but she refuses to marry him, and he cannot understand why. He discovers why when he finally meets the family who are really, truly "family". Gina is sure that if they are married, her extended mafioso family will get its hooks into the man she loves and destroy him forever. He convinces her that true love will conquer all, and they decide to marry and beat the odds.Predictably, all is not smooth sailing. Before Michael knows it, and without his consent, he finds himself obligated to the mob. Thoreau once said "possessions are more easily acquired than got rid of". This apparently also applies to mob ties--although mob members appear to be fairly easily dispatched. The movie rather quickly degenerates into a series of sight gags, and a few almost funny scenes when Hugh Grant has to try to speak like one of the boys.Part of the problem here is the genre itself. The mafia/gangster film reached its apex with Coppola's Godfather films in the seventies. The best sign that a particular genre is wearing thin is when most of the films being made are parodies of the genre. Analyze This was much more engaging and original. Watching DeNiro parody the characters that made him a star was fun. Watching Hugh Grant here was just plain painful. James Caan--who was in the Godfather films--plays Gina's mobster father in a role that is flat and lifeless.There are inspired moments here, but they are few and far between. If you're a Hugh Grant fan, see him at his charming best in Notting Hill or rent The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. If you must have a mafia parody, rent Analyze This or check out Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven. If it's move theater popcorn you long for, check out Sixth Sense, one of the more suspenseful and innovative films of the summer. But Mickey Blue Eyes? Fuhgeddaboutit!

SnoopyStyle Michael Felgate (Hugh Grant) is a funny art auctioneer managing an auction house. He proposes to girlfriend Gina Vitale (Jeanne Tripplehorn) but she rejects him at first to keep him out of her mob family and her gangster father Frank Vitale (James Caan). They agree to get married while keeping out of the family business. However that's harder to maintain when mob boss Vito Graziosi (Burt Young) wants his son Johnny (John Ventimiglia)'s garish painting to be auctioned off by Michael for $50k. Then the FBI comes knocking on his door claiming its possible money laundering.It starts off really funny at the Chinese restaurant. It has a great promising premise but the comedy fades. It has Hugh Grant's flailing away without a proper partner to play off of. There is a funny bit where Hugh struggles with the mobster accent. Forgedaboud it! That was hilarious. The movie needs more moments like that.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had heard about this film quite a few times, I knew the two leading male stars in it, and I knew it was something do with with a man trying to marry a gangster's daughter, so I decided to give it a go and see what I would think. Basically in New York, English art house auctioneer Michael Felgate (Hugh Grant) proposes to his girlfriend Gina Vitale (Basic Instinct's Jeanne Tripplehorn), but she shockingly turns him down, she explains it is because her father Frank Vitale (James Caan) as well as as her cousins and uncles are a crime family of gangsters heavily involved in Mafia activity. She doesn't want him getting sucked into this world, but he assures her this wouldn't happen, but he unknowingly does become part of a money laundering scheme, before they are even officially engaged, the FBI have him in their sights, and soon enough he is being forced into helping the mob with more laundering scams that he is made aware of, once under the given nickname "Mickey Blue Eyes". When one the laundering schemes goes wrong Gina's cousin Johnny Graziosi (John Ventimiglia) assaults Michael, Gina gets mad, grabs his gun and fires a warning shot into the ceiling, but is ricochets and Johnny is accidentally killed, Johnny's father Vito Graziosi (Rocky's Burt Young) threatens to Frank that he will kill Gina unless Michael is killed during the wedding speeches. Frank cannot hurt his daughter, so he confesses to Michael what Vito has ordered, and they turn out the FBI for protection, the authorities make a setup that will see Michael apparently get assassinated in a fake attack at the wedding reception, he is also given a wire to try and record Vito confessing to his activities and crimes in the mob. The plan fails and Vito catches onto the setup, Vinnie D'Agostino (Analyze This's Joe Viterelli) is ordered to kill him, but he accidentally shoots Gina, Vito is arrested while Michael and Frank are in the ambulance mourning over Gina's death, but it was also fake, Vinnie and Gina were part of the FBI's backup plan, and she wanted to teach her groom and father a lesson, in the end Michael and her make up, and Frank is happy for the Englishman to be part of his regular family. Also starring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's James Fox as Philip Cromwell, Gerry Becker as FBI Agent Bob Connell, Maddie Corman as Carol the Photographer, Tony Darrow as Angelo, Paul Lazar as Ritchie Vitale and GoodFellas' Vincent Pastore as Al. Grant does his silly English twit act we have come to expect fine, Caan could have perhaps acted a bit more like the real don of the family but is okay, supporting actors all do their parts alright as well, the film though is a little predictable and perhaps dull, it made me laugh in the right places, like the scene where Grant is trying to get mob lingo and certain scenes in the auction house, but otherwise it's not hilariously funny, so all in all it was a see just once comedy. Okay!

Framescourer Hugh Grant reprises his old moves in a film that reprises old themes for laughs. Recent (noughties) Hugh Grant films have had a knowing respectability about them. Before these were films like 9 Months and this one - recycled, market driven nonsense.So we're given the cast of The Sopranos (apparently), a ratpack soundtrack and endless, feeble mobflick parody that's not funny but black, stifling and cringeworthy by turns.Even Jeanne Tripplehorn is miscast, bringing too much gravity to her functional love interest. It's surprisingly difficult to pull off black comedy - applying the funnies to the wiseguys is no different and this one pretty much fails. 2/10