`Analyze This' – A Comedy in Need of Some Therapy by Homer Yen (c)1999
If I've learned anything from watching movies with a Mafia element in it, it's that the big bosses never have it easy. They're constantly being assailed by gunfire, busy plotting out their next crimes, and always being chased by the law. It's enough to give the toughest boss a panic attack.
Even kingpin Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) is not immune to the pressures of his job. He is the head of a powerful mob family who strikes fear in those who dare to cross him. Though he is tough, he begins to lose control of his ability to command others. Among other things, he's beginning to have trouble bringing himself to kill people (a vital Mob job requirement). If others find out about Vitti's inadequacy, he'll be targeted for sure. He needs to quickly find a psychologist to help him out. The therapist that unluckily finds his way into Vitti's life is Dr. Sobol (Billy Crystal). Meeting Vitti couldn't come at a worse time in his life. He is about to marry his fiancée (Lisa Kudrow) and wants as little to go wrong as possible. But Vitti doesn't take no for an answer (Vitti funnily says that he only hears ‘no' when his victims are whimpering for mercy), and Sobol begins to try to help him resolve his personal problems against his better judgment. But it's not going to be easy helping Vitti become a well-adjusted gangster. And from that point on, an uneasy but sometimes droll friendship begins to develop.
There seems to be lots of potential comedy in this kind of setup. DeNiro has played the tough mob boss many times over, and Crystal is a funny guy when he has the right material. But the material here doesn't really let any of these two gifted performers shine. On the one hand, there is the slapstick comedy using Crystal's likeable demeanor against DeNiro's stone-faced, tough-guy persona. But most of the comedy seemed subdued and reduced to mini-skits. DeNiro's a good sport as he satires his past Mob roles by, for example, crying during touching commercials. But I felt that Kudrow's role was no different than watching Phoebe with an attitude (on Friends). The comedy never makes it past the lightweight status because the dialogue focuses too much on one-liners, and it didn't seem like there was any thought to a scene's setup other than letting Crystal and DeNiro square off against one another. The other strange thing was that at points, the movie tries to take itself too seriously such as when Crystal begins to unravel the root of the problem or at the end when the film seemingly gives up on its premise by showcasing a bizarrely timed hail of gunfire. It seemed as if someone just picked this ending out of a hat. These kinds of scenes made the film seem uneven.
`Analyze This' had some cute moments and some clever ideas. There are moments that are droll and other moments that seem to last a bit too long. DeNiro does carry himself well, but there's not enough here to put his teeth into. Even at 106 minutes, the film seemed a bit long. If you analyze this, you'll probably come up with the same conclusions.
Grade: C+
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews