Schlock and Awe Double Feature: A Lazy Legal Sunday Afternoon

SCHLOCK AND AWE DOUBLE FEATURE 

A Few Good Men, Directed By Rob Reiner 1992

My Cousin Vinny, Directed By Johnathan Lynn 1992

    It's usually on a Sunday afternoon  when I get an itch to watch a legal drama.  Manufactured tension feels natural in a court room setting.  Because at least in film, it is meant to be about argument, debate and trying to get to a sort of truth and being able to take the moral high-ground.  There are rarely blurred lines in a courtroom drama, which is why they tend to make terrific Oscar bate.  I sat down and watched 1992's A Few Good Men and My Cousin Vinny.  Both were more similar than I had remembered, especially when it came to their climatic third act Witness Box testimonies.  There is a push and pull them that make them feel like dialogue sex scenes.  One was instantly inducted into the pop culture.  The other won Marisa Tomei an Academy Award.  It's both of these scenes that I feel get to the heart of why Court Room dramas are so watchable and maybe slightly pornographic.

    Jack Nicholson marching toward the stand in A Few Good Men is iconic.  It could be argued that 'You Can't Handle The Truth' might be one of the more quoted lines of the 1990s.  It was parodied instantly and everywhere.  Since I am of that vague line between Gen X and Millennial, my first go to is usually the Simpsons.  You Truth Handler You, from the Season Six episode Sideshow Bob Roberts.  Which really gets to the heart of the famous show down between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, just come right out and saying what we all secretly want is lower taxes and to be ruled by a King.

You Truth Handler You

    Jack Nicholson is perfect casting for Colonial Nathan Jessep, who wants to rule like a King.

  Nicholson can command a room with  little effort.  We only meet Jessep a couple of times before Tom Cruise calls him to the stand.  But in those brief moments you know Jessep is the one in command and that he's also an entitled asshole.  I really love Nicholson's performance.  As the Villain it's Nicholson who grounds the movie as a whole.  And it's also Nicholson's performance that changes through time and provides context to how to you see the movie.  I'm guessing Aaron Sorkin's play started off as a way to show off his verbal dexterity.  Then was a pleasing mid level blockbuster in 1992.  But Jessep also brings another level, firstly the question of what to do with an old Cold War Mentality, to a more sinister 2020 perspective, at least to a comfortable middle class perspective.  Colonial Jessep is  the perfect example of the corruption and entitlement unchecked power develops.  There's a Trumpian populist promise of 'only I can cure the fears you may or may not hold and don't you dare question my methods'.

                                'You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.' 

      In terms of Jessep's Witness Scene, it's the battle of the two movie stars.  I'm not sure if it was director Rob Reiner pushing Tom Cruise to go bigger, or it was Cruise wanting to be the Movie Star above all others.  From the beginning of A Few Good Men, Cruise is pitched large while everyone else is normal.  Nicholson is also big, but he's not trying because he's Jack Nicholson.  You can see the higher Cruise's voice gets the more quietly seething Nicholson starts to become.  Cruise is constantly trying to bring Nicholson up to his level, and Nicholson is trying to dismiss Cruise.  Which is why 'You Can't Handle the Truth' is such a satisfying release, it's an explosive anger that has been building throughout the movie.  The truth! Finally.  A Few Good Men what ever it's fault's is an incredibly watchable.  It's probably why 'You Can't Handle the Truth' was quickly picked up by Pop culture and presented as Sideshow Bob.

    My Cousin Vinny's climatic Witness Scene feels different but is doing a similar thing as A Few Good Men.  It also feels like a conventional movie with something interesting happening under the surface.  Like Nicholson, Marisa Tomie is a hostile witness, and is only there because her Boyfriend and Lawyer Joe Pesci needs a quick expert witness on the fly and out of desperation drags Tomei on the stand.  But unlike Nicholson, Tomei's Mona Lisa Vito is all light, all intelligence and knows more about car models and tire treads than the whole state of Alabama.   My Cousin Vinny is a great Snobs verses Slobs movie.  British director Johnathan Lynn infuses the mannered pageantry and then lets Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei stumble right over it.  Right from the beginning, Tomei owns My Cousin Vinny even if she is placed as the supportive girlfriend role.  But, she is bolshy and constantly fighting to be part of the movie, and is constantly dismissed.  Finally Tomei gets her chance to shine on the Witness Stand.  I love how the scene builds.  Tomei is furious at Pesci's Vinny for constantly dismissing her and then wanting to use her on his own terms.  In front of a confused Courtroom, what starts off as a public fight turns into flirtation, an intimate push and pull between two lovers.

    Pesci and Tomei are both enjoying the theatrics of the moment.  Tomei stretches out like a cat, when she gets into the zone.  It's a delightful to watch, especially when she turn's to Judge Fred Gwynne and says 'It's a fact' with strong authority, it highlight's Mona's and Vinny's relationship of fighting and flirtation.  The courtroom scene is  a repetition of a cute moment of them them in a hotel, where it's more foreplay and in court it's, well still foreplay.  It's a beguiling performance and  Marisa Tomei deserved her Oscar win.  Gone are the whispers of an urban legend, an aging Jack Palance reading the wrong name.  Now Tomei is hot Aunt May, and when ever you see her on screen you smile, because she is awesome.  The Oscars can be so arbitrary at times so it's nice to look back and see the right choice occasionally. 

    Both Witness Stand scenes in A Few Good Men and My Cousin Vinny are both used and shot in the exact same way.  And are about an explosive truth, whether it be corruption of power or  a miscarriage of justice, it's all about a release.  Even when you know the familiar grooves of the Legal Drama has a whole, I always still the  tense exchanges and waiting for that release.  More importantly it's about the relationship presented on screen.  It's a type of cinematic sex scene of dialogue and manufactured drama, but with a similar tingle.  It's all about that intimate and public interaction and flurry of accusations and recriminations.  And for me they work, for how much I dislike Nicholson's Jessep and love Tomei's Mona Lisa.