My Cousin Vinny is an American movie, released on Friday 13 March 1992, starring Joe Pesci and
Marisa Tomei. Tomei won an Oscar for
Best Supporting Actress for her performance and
Fred Gwynne received critical acclaim for his performance as Judge Chamberlain Haller. The
cast included Ralph Macchio, Lane Smith and
Bruce McGill.
Plot
While driving through the fictional Beechum County, Alabama, Billy Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and his friend Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell
Whitfield) accidentally neglect to pay for a can of tuna fish after stopping at the
'Sac-o-Suds' convenience store. After they leave the store, the clerk, a man named
Jimmy Willis, is shot and killed. Billy and Stan are then pulled over and detained in connection with the murder. However, Billy and Stan assume they were detained for shoplifting,
so they behave guiltily and manage to indirectly implicate themselves in the shooting. Due to circumstantial evidence and a series of miscommunications, Billy ends up being charged with
murder, and Stan is charged as an accessory to the crime. The pair call Billy's mother, who tells her son that there is an
attorney in the family, who would be willing to take the case. Unfortunately, Billy's
cousin Vincent LaGuardia Gambini (Joe Pesci), better known as Vinny, is a neophyte
personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, newly
admitted to the bar (after six attempts and six years) and has no trial experience.
Vinny manages to fool the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne) about being
experienced enough to take the case by stating that he successfully defended the "first Son of
Sam" suspect. However, his actual ignorance of basic court procedures gets him into trouble immediately, much to his
clients' consternation. For example, after appearing before the judge at the arraignment in
a leather jacket and without a tie, Vinny is thrown into jail for contempt of court
after failing to enter a plea and behaving disrespectfully toward the judge. On his second appearance in court, Vinny does not
even bother to cross-examine any witnesses in the probable cause hearing. To make things worse, the three eyewitnesses turn out to be stupid, incompetent, or liars,
and they swear that they saw Billy and Stan at the crime scene. Sheriff Dean Farley also testifies that Billy confessed, but
Billy had merely been incredulous at the suggestion that he was suspected in a murder when he said, "I shot the clerk?!" As these
claims go unquestioned, it appears that the prosecution has an airtight case that will inevitably lead to a conviction at the
trial. Meanwhile, Vinny's inability to get a good night's sleep at the poor accommodations he finds, coupled with his own
stubborn and proud refusal to accept the help of his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa
Tomei), further impairs his performance.
After Vinny's poor showing at the hearing, Billy and Stan decide to fire Vinny and use the public defender, John Gibbons (Austin Pendleton). Vinny asks
his cousin for one more chance to prove himself in court, and Billy reluctantly agrees. The trial then opens with Vinny
representing Billy and Gibbons representing Stan. Vinny manages to again draw the ire of the judge by showing up late and wearing
a gaudy second-hand suit (because his new suit accidentally fell in the mud). After again
being cited for contempt, Vinny sleeps through the prosecutor's opening statement.
With nothing prepared and no idea what the jury has already heard, Vinny makes a brief statement: "Everything that guy just said
is bullshit. Thank you." The DA, Jim Trotter III (Lane Smith) objects on the ground that
Vinny's entire statement is argumentative. Judge Haller sustains the objection and strikes everything but "thank you" from the
record. However, it turns out that Stan's attorney suffers from a serious case of stage
fright and delivers an inept, stuttering opening statement. He again missteps when cross-examining Sam Tipton (Maury Chaykin), the first
prosecution witness. Gibbons asks questions that Tipton easily answers, which serves to strengthen the case against Billy and
Stan. Vinny at last manages to do something right, as he asks a devastating series of questions that discredit Tipton's prior
testimony while presenting an alternate theory of the crime: that two other men, driving a similar car, committed the murder
after Billy and Stan had left the scene. After Tipton admits that what he saw was consistent with Vinny's theory and that he "may
have been mistaken" in what he said during the direct examination, Stan dismisses the
public defender and declares that he wants Vinny to represent him. In addition, Vinny finally gets some sleep when he decides
against having Lisa bail him out following his contempt charge. Instead, he stays overnight at the prison. A riot breaks out that night, though Vinny is able to sleep well since he is used to such noises in Brooklyn.
As the trial goes on, Vinny continues to expose the weaknesses in the district attorney's case. The second witness, Ernie
Crane (Raynor Scheine), swears he recognized the defendants and their car even though he
was looking through several obstacles. After calling attention to the "rusty, dusty, dirty" screen on Crane's window and the
large amount of foliage in the middle of his view of the convenience store, Vinny gets the witness to acknowledge that he may
have merely noticed "two guys in a green convertible," consistent with Vinny's theory that the crime was perpetrated by two
similar-looking men in a similar car. The third witness, Constance Riley (Paulene Myers), has
severely impaired vision yet still swears that she recognized the defendants as the murderers. However, after Vinny shows that
she can't see well enough to tell how many fingers he is holding up across the courtroom, half the distance from her house to the
crime scene, she admits that she wasn't able to see well enough to positively identify the defendants.
However, Trotter has one more surprise witness, FBI analyst George
Wilbur (James Rebhorn), who testifies that his chemical analysis of the tire marks left at
the crime scene shows that they are identical to the tires on Billy's car. With only a brief recess to prepare his
cross-examination and unable to come up with a particularly strong line of questions, Vinny becomes frustrated and lashes out at
Lisa by taunting her about the usefulness of her wide-angle photographs of the tire tracks. A hurt and angry Lisa leaves him to
work alone. But finally, in the courtroom, Vinny looks at the photos again and realizes that they hold the key to the case:
Billy's car could not have produced the flat and even marks because of the technology used to make its suspension. Vinny requests
a five minute recess and hastily writes an unviewed note for Sheriff Farley, asking him to run a police check, to which Farley
reluctantly agrees. Vinny needs Lisa to testify to this and leaves the court room to find Lisa immediately outside making a
phone-call. He begs her to make up with him, but she ignores him. Vinny picks her up and forces her into the courtroom, where she
uses her encyclopedic knowledge of cars to prove Vinny's theory correct. The only car that could've produced the tire marks and
been confused with Billy's, she says, is the 1963 Pontiac Tempest. Vinny then calls
Wilbur again, and he agrees with Lisa's analysis and testifies that that it would be impossible for Billy's car to have made the
marks. Sheriff Farley then returns with Vinny's requested search and testifies that two men resembling Billy and Stan were
arrested in Georgia for driving a stolen Pontiac Tempest. In the glove compartment of said car was a .357 Magnum revolver, the same type used to kill Jimmy Willis. Trotter then drops all charges against Billy
and Stan.
Throughout the film, Vinny and Judge Haller play a game of cat-and-mouse over Vinny's qualifications. Haller first discovers
that, despite Vinny's claims that he tried "quite a few" murder cases, there exist no records of anybody named Vincent Gambini
trying any case in New York State. Vinny then claims that he had his name changed during a previous career as a stage actor and
continued to use the name when he opened a law practice. Vinny, believing that he should give the judge the name of someone with
the kind of resume he claimed to have, supplies the name of a prominent New York attorney, Jerry Gallo. Unfortunately, Lisa
reveals the source of Gallo's most recent publicity: he died the week before. Next, Vinny claims that Haller misheard "Gallo"
when Vinny actually said "Callo". Finally, Lisa gets Vinny of the hook by calling his mentor and having him respond to Haller's
request by claiming that "Jerry Callo" has a long and impressive trial history.
Cast
External links
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