This is a story about two teenage boys who visit south from New York but gets imprisoned with first degree murder. To defend them, one of the boys calls his cousin, a lawyer comfortable with Southern manners.
With such canny scene-stealers as Gwynne, Smith, Pendleton, McGill and Chaykin filling out the cast, it is very hard for My Cousin Vinny to go wrong, and indeed, for the purpose of pleasant Saturday night entertainment, it does not.
For all of its grossly stereotypical characterizations and cheap laughs, My Cousin Vinny does benefit from Pesci's characteristically energetic performance. And co-star Tomei looks very nice in a clinging blue dress with gold lame applique.
The movie sags as Vinny sets out to demolish the patently shaky case and dubious witnesses for the prosecution. Pesci does his best, but a lawyer's suit on him becomes a straitjacket.
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 regional stereotypes in Dale Launer's broad script aren't so laudable, but the on-screen talent merits a retrial: Tomei talks up a storm and Pesci terrorises thinly spread gags into near-shape.