It stars Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, Mitchell Whitfield, Lane Smith, Bruce McGill, and Fred Gwynne in his final film appearance before his death.

Macchio and Whitfield play William Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein, two young New Yorkers who are arrested in Alabama and put on trial for a murder they did not commit.

After asking the local sheriff for a favor, Vinny drags an angry Lisa into court to testify as an expert witness as she and her family have worked as mechanics and she has an encyclopedic knowledge of cars.

The sheriff arrives and testifies that, following Vinny's request, he identified two men fitting Bill's and Stan's descriptions who have been arrested in Georgia for driving a stolen Pontiac Tempest and were in possession of a gun matching the murder weapon.

Driving away, Lisa admits that she had Judge Malloy help convince Haller of Jerry Callo's "successful" legal career, before she and Vinny bicker about their wedding plans.

[5] He spent several sessions with an attorney to review the process of legal trials, and learned from him that much of criminal court proceedings are not taught in law school but come from practice, which served well for Vinny's character.

[5] Ben Stiller and Will Smith were considered for the roles of Bill and Stan but, in both cases, there was concern related to the incarceration of a Jewish and Black person in the South, and Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield were hired instead.

The site's consensus reads, "The deft comic interplay between Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei helps to elevate My Cousin Vinny's predictable script, and the result is a sharp, hilarious courtroom comedy.

He declared that despite Macchio's co-star billing, the actor was given little to do, and the film seemed adrift until "lightning strikes" with the final courtroom scenes, when Gwynne, Pesci, and Tomei all gave humorous performances.

The movie performed well in home video sales and rentals (originally VHS, and eventually DVD) and received frequent play on cable television.

Pendleton suffered from stuttering in his childhood before overcoming it; during filming he did not enjoy dredging up bad memories from his teenage years and, afterward, he was not pleased to be publicly associated with the character.

[15] The film's director, Jonathan Lynn, has an English law degree from the University of Cambridge,[16] and lawyers have praised the accuracy of My Cousin Vinny's depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy,[17] with one stating that "[t]he movie is close to reality even in its details.

He concluded that Lynn and scriptwriter Dale Launer "have given our profession a wonderful teaching tool while producing a gem of a movie that gives the public at large renewed faith in the common law trial and the adversarial system as the best way to determine the truth and achieve justice".

[25] John Marshall Law School professor Alberto Bernabe wrote that "Vinny is terrible at the things we do teach in law school, but very good at the things we don't":[26] [How to] interview clients, to gather facts, to prepare a theory of a case, to negotiate, to know when to ask a question and when to remain quiet, to cross examine a witness forcefully (but with charm) in order to expose the weaknesses in their testimonyUnited States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited My Cousin Vinny as an example of the principle that a client can choose his own lawyer,[27] but United States Senator John Kennedy told District Court nominee Matthew S. Petersen that having seen the film did not qualify one to be a federal judge during his failed 2017 confirmation hearing.

[30] Lynn, an opponent of capital punishment, believes that the film expresses an anti-death penalty message without "preaching to people", and demonstrates the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

Lynn stated that both he and Launer attempted to accurately depict the legal process in My Cousin Vinny, favorably comparing it to Trial and Error, for which he could not make what he believed were necessary changes.

[16] In an interview on March 14, 2012, the film's screenwriter, Dale Launer, talked about a sequel he had written involving Vinny Gambini practicing law in England.