Mickey Blue Eyes

A true family affair is in the core of Mickey Blue Eyes, from the mob right down to the collaboration of star Hugh Grant and his wife, Elizabeth Hurley as producer. I’ve always giggled at the scene in the trailer where James Caan is attempting to teach Hugh Grant how to speak like a true New Yorker, a classic, almost worth the exorbitant ticket prices of today. The album from Milan bleeds Italiano, but that skewed, strange side that makes it a fit for a film like this.

It isn't advertised until you pop the lid on the CD that the filmmakers enlisted the talents of veteran composer Basil Poledouris and Wolfgang Hammerschmid. The score that these two put together for the film, which seems to be a trend recently in Hollywood, is as close to stereotypical as you could get to "mob music." It fits given that the film is a play on the stereotype, and adds to the atmosphere of the film that any good score would. Unfortunately, with the presentation here on the CD, the flow and continuity is broken by the somewhat out of sequence songs that appear in the film (the opening credit song shows up as track four on the CD).

It's not very memorable, but the score and the song selections fit the bill for the film, and are likeable in their moments on this CD. The odd little bonus track, "F****** Cookie!" would lead you to believe that we'd have some choice dialogue from that very funny restaurant scene, but it's actually just the background Chinese music. It seems a little out of place, but at least it's on the end of the CD. However, I think this is one of the few movies that could have benefited from dialogue snippets and choice quotes, but usually they are never used sparingly enough.