Review of Analyze This (1999) by Stuart K — 30 Dec 2012

Directed by Harold Ramis, who was looking for something different after high concept comedies like Groundhog Day (1993) and Multiplicity (1996), this was something small, but with a quite original idea, with a clever script by Ramis, Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan.

It has a brilliant pairing both sparring off one another hilariously, and it has some very funny gags and clever dialogue throughout. In New York, top mobster Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) has a lot on his mind, with a meeting of a lot of mob bosses coming up, and rival mob boss Primo Sindone (Chazz Palminteri) is looking to take Vitti down.

With all of this stress mounting up, Vitti suffers a panic attack, and his henchman Jelly (Joe Viterelli), puts Vitti in touch with Psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), who is facing problems of his own, as he's about to get married to TV news reporter Laura MacNamara (Lisa Kudrow).

However, once Vitti comes into Sobel's life, he's not going to go away, and he needs help, and Sobel reluctantly has to help him, or he'll come a cropper. It's a very funny film, and it showed De Niro could handle comedy, while Crystal is his usual self, and all the better for being so.

Ramis keeps the tempo up, and he captures the underworld atmosphere of New York well, but you get the nagging feeling this was the beginning of De Niro's downfall.