Mickey Blue Eyes (1999)

Directed by Kelly Makin, Carl Gottlieb & Hugh Grant
Written by Robert Kuhn, Marc Lawrence & Adam Scheinman
Starring Hugh Grant, James Caan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Burt Young, James Fox

My Advice: Wait for Cable.

Michael Felgate (Grant) is an up and coming head of an auction house in New York City.  Other than Sotheby's, they're the cream of the crop.  He has found the perfect girl, Gina (Tripplehorn), and has decided to pop the Big Question.  As with any romantic comedy, there is a slight complication.  Namely the fact that the future father-in-law (Caan) and uncle-in-law (Young) are both involved with the Mob.  Gina would rather not marry Michael than drag him into their seedy underworld.  Michael assures her no problem, he can handle it.  Everything will be fine, he says.  Suuuuure it will.

Hugh Grant is playing the same character we've seen many times before, that of the bumbling, fumbling--but endearing--British guy who finds himself in a situation he never expected to be in.  Jeanne Tripplehorn and James Caan serve their respective purposes, not really adding anything to the characters they play.  Only Burt Young's  slightly menacing Uncle Vito seems to be a character with any depth.  It has all the makings of a good rental--so what happened?

Well, it's like this: any film that has twenty minutes of itself in which the only humor stems from Hugh Grant's inability to say such Mafioso terms as "fuggedaboutit"--that is a movie with problems.  An unevenly funny movie complete with predictable ending  that's best viewed when you're paying for cable anyway.