The basic plot summary for Mickey Blue Eyes showed a lot of potential: mild-mannered English auctioneer gets sucked into the mob business of his future bride's family. Unfortunately, the story line, casting and direction leave most of the potential unrealized, simply because the whole story is so ridiculously implausible. The movie suffers from trying to mix parody, romance and drama.<br /><br />The intrinsic problem is that certain genres lend themselves to being parodied much more easily than others, e.g. horror and action/adventure are easy and concentration camps are tough. It is very hard to balance the ruthlessness that is the basis of mob life with the light-hearted antics one wishes to see in a comedy. Analyze This, which was quite good, and Married to the Mob, which was pretty weak, are more successful than Mickey Blue Eyes because everything in the movie played for laughs.<br /><br />Burt Young does a good job as a humorless mob boss but Jeanne Tripplehorn is totally miscast as a mobster's daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer and Mercedes Ruell are far more convincing as mob wives than Jeanne Tripplehorn is as a mob daughter.) Hugh Grant is fine playing the role of Michael, the befuddled English romantic, but Michael's attempt to portray "Mickey Blue Eyes" is ridiculous and tiresome. Who can't imitate Brando playing Corleone?<br /><br />I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater.