My Blue Heaven (1990)

This is one of those late-century middle-of-the-road comedies that isn't quite forgotten, but is far from being a certified classic. However, it's an odd-couple good-time with confident humor and silly performances that are as bright as its plastic setting. And I could watch Bill Irwin's gangly dancing forever.

"My Blue Heaven" features a simple premise; it's a fish-out-of-water comedy about a gangster in the Witness Protection Program adjusting to suburban life. Except the premise requires an actor who has played a gangster in the past: a DeNiro, Pacino or Pesci comes to mind. Since we're stuck with Steve Martin we're left with a movie that fails on every level.I'm gonna go ahead and guess that this movie was written specifically FOR a DeNiro or Pesci. I'm gonna guess that said star pulled out at the last minute. I can only assume that this happened so far into production that no one had time to revise the script to cater to new lead Steve Martin, because the jokes make NO SENSE WITH A NON-GANGSTER ACTOR PLAYING THE ROLE! Steve Martin doesn't even help by trying to play the part realistically; he does such a broad, offensive Italian caricature that the entire picture dissolves into a slapdash cartoon. Imagine casting Robin Williams in the lead of "My Cousin Vinny."Now I have to wonder how they came up with the title of the film. By turning on an I-Pod and picking a song title at random? It might just as easily have been called "Hey Jude" or "Whip It."I love Steve Martin, but would someone mind telling me what he was thinking here? If he was thinking at all? His "Vinny" comes straight off the dinner-theater stage and into suburban America, which is evidently populated by unsuspecting nitwits just begging to be fleeced by oily New York mafioso. I won't waste time on Rick Moranis' ineffectual FBI agent- all I have to do is tell you that his character is named "Barney Coopersmith." That should sum up the level of wit in Nora Ephron's stiflingly obvious script.I'll give Steve Martin one thing: with his spiky black hair and constant facial twitching he manages to transcend his WASP roots... he never comes across as Italian but he might pass for a schizophrenic Guatemalan busboy on a three-day cocaine binge. The movie is a mess... it's as emotionally hollow as the tract-housing communities it tries to satirize, and if you don't yet understand the power of casting in making a movie work always remember "My Blue Heaven."At least it's good for something.GRADE: D

Very, very funny film. Steve Martin is probably funnier here than in any of his other roles as small time thief Vinnie Antonelli who gets placed under Witness protection program to testify against some bigger crooks. Rick Moranis also has never been more appealing as the unfortunate agent who handles Vinnie's affairs.Of course, My Blue Heaven is not credible for one moment but it never stops with the jokes which come fast and furiously and work for the most part. The script is superbly written in terms of hilarious dialogue and one quotable line after another. Everyone involved aims at giving it their best, even Joan Cusack is likable here.If you want to switch off your brain for 90 minutes and have a few laughs, I recommend My Blue Heaven. Works for me every time.

I hadn't even heard of this movie until I stumbled across it on late night TV and found it more than adequately funny. As a Sicilian, I got over any real sensitivity on the mobster subject long ago. The beautiful thing about Martin is that he can be absurd in almost any role he plays and still be likable and funny because of that very absurdity. This allows him to doing characterized spoofs of even evangelists with relative impunity. The magic formula is that just about everything he does in a role would supposedly make one dislike him, but one doesn't.I am not exactly sure what failed to make this movie more of a box-office success, or why it got so little attention. I would think that there would have been enough Martin fans to give it a good flying send-off and kept it there. Possibly it was due in part to the fact that by the time the movie was made, the movie-going audience demographics had started to change considerably. Adults were becoming more likely to rely on TV and video-tapes for their viewing fare, unless they thought a movie had the scope and grandiosity to benefit from the very large screen. The movie houses depended more and more on the teeny-boppers who relied on them as social outlets or at least just another place away from home(ugh!). And most teeny-boppers lacked many of the points of reference that would make the whole New York/wise guy/FBI/not really bad guy shtick really funny. Then of course it was also the beginning of end-less violence and computer generated special effects which youth saw and popularized as an extension of their video games.Considering the more recent offerings such as Bewitched, this movie is on a different plateau altogether. If you are in your forties now and have been exposed to the Sopranos, by all means see this movie if you missed it originally. Chances are it will make you laugh, hard. And is that not what a good comedy is supposed to do?