Remarried to the mob

In Mickey Blue Eyes, the humour - such as it is - comes from placing Hugh Grant, the most foppish of Englishmen, in a world inhabited by the kind of "wiseguys" you expect to find in The Godfather or Goodfellas.

He plays Michael Felgate, a Fine Art auctioneer in uptown Manhattan whose girlfriend (Jeanne Tripplehorn) just happens to be the daughter of a well-connected New York mobster (James Caan).

The mobster and his prospective son-in-law inhabit mutually exclusive worlds, but turn out to have more in common than either could have imagined: both are emotionally stunted, dress dapperly, speak in code, and enjoy weddings.

In no time at all, Grant is inveigled into laundering money for the mob. He thinks he is only doing one job for them, but they reckon he has signed on for life.

A more incisive and satirical comedy might have played up the similarities between the upper-class Englishman and the Maf-iosi or shown up the pretensions of the New York art world. Instead, Mickey Blue Eyes (which was produced by Liz Hurley) relies all too heavily on Grant's star appeal.

Director Kelly Makin seems uncertain whether he is making a romance, a screwball comedy, a mob drama or yet another film about a yuppie in peril in the tradition of After Hours and Something Wild.

Mickey Blue Eyes has its share of crowd-pleasing moments. As a dating movie, it just about passes muster, but that doesn't hide the fact that it is bland and unambitious filmmaking.

On general release from August 20 Geoffrey Macnabb

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