I didn't give this movie a perfect score in order to be honest in comparing to great classics like "Citizen Kane" and "Seven Samaurai." However, this movie is so all-around wonderful, it's a real shame it scores so poorly for the general IMDb voter. However, the IMDb voter leans to the geeky, and "Paulie" doesn't qualify for that.
The only acting criticism I might suggest is that Hallie Kate Eisenberg didn't portray the perfect stuttering child. I'm sorry, but asking a 6 year-old child to out-do Dustin Hoffman as the Rainman is asking for the impossible in film-making.
Moving past that minor complaint, the movie has the best of many films: buddy road-trip, con-games, hero as friendly party-animal (party-bird?), Disney-like humor for young and old, etc. What's not to like? Tony Shaloub wears his role like a pair of comfortable jeans. That's normal for him, it seems. ("I'm Russian... I LIKE long stories.) I don't like mangoes, but he almost makes me want to go out and buy one. Watch the movie and that will make sense.
Buddy Hackett and Cheech Marin make very appropriate appearances in the film. Roles that are quite fitting to what we all know about them. I have always found Jay Mohr to be a bit slimy, and his on-screen role fits that as well. The only surprise to me was finding that Jay was also Paulie's voice. In the end, even that works well; put Parrot and anti-Parrot together as a team and it creates a magic of its own.
If you are trying to find a film for you and the kids that is neither insulting nor boring for either, "Paulie" is a perfect candidate. I will, however, admit that a happy moment colors my review of "Paulie." I was on a road-trip during a major heat-wave. The car's air-conditioning died, half the restaurants had dead cooling (as did our hotel) and I said, "let's watch a movie where there is working air-conditioning." So we did. So for 100 minutes we were cooled, amused, and given a heart-warming experience. When I saw it recently on VCR under less emotional circumstances, I realized just how well this movie was made.
It's a sleeper film you won't regret watching.

La Sanguisuga Conduce la Danza, or The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance as I believe is it's common English title, is set on 'Ireland' in '1902' where the mysterious Count Richard Marnack (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) invites soon-to-be out of work theatre actress Evelyn (Patrizia Webley as Patrizia De Rossi) & three more of her fellow soon-to-be out of work actress friends Cora (Krista Nell), Penny (Lidia Olizzi) & Rosalind (Marzia Damon as Caterina Chiani) to his castle situated on a small island just off the coast. At first Evelyn is reluctant but is persuaded when it is agreed stage hand Samuel (Leo Valeriano) goes along as well. Once there Count Marnack tells his guests that his Father & Grandfather both cut the heads off their cheating wives using a ceremonial knife & there's a feeling of unease when it turns out that Evelyn looks EXACTLY the same as the current Count's wife who ran away not too long ago... Along with having to worry about weirdo servants it turns out that someone wants to use the knife themselves to chop a few heads off...
This Italian production was written & directed by Alfredo Rizzo & is total, complete & utter crap from start to finish. First things first lets start the criticism with the title The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, lets examine that title because when I do I feel somewhat cheated that there aren't any Vampires or any form of bloodsucking whatsoever, no-one 'leads' anything at anytime & there most certainly isn't any dance or dancing so don't expect any of these things. What you should expect though is a tedious, dull, boring pointless little 'giallo' that takes over an hour before anyone is killed & any sort of murder mystery starts to take shape, the first hour of La Sanguisuga Conduce la Danza is as plot less & uninteresting as anything out there. The best way to imagine it is to think of the most boring soft-core porn film you've ever seen, then cut most of the soft-core porn out & that just leaves bad actors, bad dubbing, bad dialogue, a tiny bit of soft-core sex & lesbianism & absolutely nothing else. Yep, it really is that bad. The mystery elements are crap, people do illogical things for no apparent reason & the overly complicated 'twist' ending is as bad as the rest of it, The Sixth Sense (1999) this ain't!
Director Rozzi does an OK job & La Sanguisga Conduce la Danza actually has a nice look & feel to it despite it's obvious low budget, I mean there are scenes where he shows a 'storm' raging outside the castle however the stock footage used is in black & white! So the film jumps from bright colour to black & white whenever it cuts to the storm & back to colour again! There is one absolutely hilarious scene where a maid & her friend discuss her breasts & she lets her friend feel them who is then full of compliments, this scene is so funny & just so unnatural that it's priceless & easily the films best moment even if a bad 70's porno would be embarrassed by the dialogue! There is minimal nudity & the sex/lesbian scenes are very tame. Forget about any blood or gore as there isn't any apart from a decapitated head.
Technically the films pretty good, the period setting & production design are actually quite impressive although it's not massive in scope it does the job effectively enough. The film has a nice sense of colour & the cinematography is fine. The film is dubbed so it's hard to give an opinion on the original performances but the voice actors are terrible & the dialogue is even worse than usual.
La Sanguisuga Conduce la Danza is a terrible film, it makes no sense, it has virtually no story for over an hour, it has possibly the most misleading title ever & is really dull & boring with a confused stupid 'twist' ending. As far as Euro horror fans go there are plenty of much better films than this so please don't waste your time, as for anyone else this is definitely one to avoid. Trivia Note: the notorious (& banned in the UK) Nazi exploitation/horror film Horrifying Experiments of the S.S Last Days (1977) AKA SS Hell Camp & The Beast in Heat was directed by Luigi Batzella & he has a fairly substantial role as a police detective in La Sanguisuga Conduce la Danza.