Review of Analyze This (1999) by Van R — 28 May 2010

Tough guy Robert De Niro and shrimpy little Billy Crystal make amusing but mismatched cronies as an anxiety-stricken Mafioso and his reluctant Jewish psychiatrist in "Caddyshack" director Harold Ramis' "Analyze This," a boisterous, bullet-riddled, but formulaic wiseguy action comedy. If you missed De Niro's memorable roles as a mobster in "The Godfather, Part II," "Goodfellas," "Once Upon A Time in America," "The Untouchables," and "Casino," you may have trouble savoring the satirical gibes in this witty gangster movie make-over of the 1991 Frank Oz comedy "What About Bob" with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss.

Notorious Mafioso Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) is set to take over as Don of a Manhattan crime family when he finds himself going soft. During an interrogation, he cannot bring himself to beat a traitor to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat. (Remember in "The Untouchables" that De Niro as Al Capone wielded a Louisville slugger.) Afflicted with crying jags, panic attacks, and impotence, the overwrought crime boss confides in his right-hand henchman Jelly (Joe Viterelli of "Eraser") that he needs psychotherapy. Jelly and another hood are making a delivery, i.e., a live body tied up in the trunk of their automobile, when a divorced New York psychiatrist, Dr. Benjamin Sobel (a bewhiskered Billy Crystal of "Forget Paris") accidentally rear-ends their limo. Eagerly, the remorseful Dr. Sobel admits his guilt and prepares to call the cops, but Jelly and Jimmy Boots (Richard Castellano) refuse to make an issue out of it. Nevertheless, Dr. Sobel gives Jelly his business card. Before you can say 'Costa Nostra,' Paul Vitti and Jelly barge into Dr. Sobel's office, bribe his patient to scram, and make Sobel an offer that he cannot refuse.

"What's my goal?" Cringes an incredulous Dr. Sobel at the prospect of Paul Vitti putting him on 24-hour call. "To make you a happy, well-adjusted gangster?" Clearly, Sobel never set out to counsel criminals: "When I got into family therapy, this wasn't the family I had in mind." Now, Sobel has to cure the mobster without ending up face down in a New Jersey swamp! The complications in "Analyze This" pile up. Rival Italian gangster Primo Sidone (Chazz Palminteri of "A Bronx Tale") is dying for an excuse to whack Vitti. Meanwhile, Dr. Sobel boards a Miami plane to marry his TV reporter girlfriend Laura (Lisa Kudrow of "Mother"). Vitti suffers a relapse, and Sobel cannot spend a night in bed with his fiancée with Jelly abducting him. When Laura and Ben are exchanging vows, Primo's hit-man tries to ice Vitti. Jelly kills the assassin and dumps the body out of the window so that it crashes several floors below into Laura's wedding dinner! Sobel cannot escape Vitti. Laura is as determined to stage their wedding without interference as Vitti is to call on Sobel when his anxiety flares up.

Director Harold Ramis is an old hand at hilarity. Not only did he star as one of the "Ghostbusters," but he also helmed such audience pleasing outings as "Multiplicity," "Stuart Saves His Family," "Groundhog Day," "National Lampoon's Vacation," and "Caddyshack." Along with co-scribes Kenneth Lonergan of "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle" and Peter Tolan of "What Planet Are You From?," Ramis drums up an above-average yarn that adroitly amalgamates laughter with lead. Predictably, Freudian jokes and goombah Italian humor are woven ad nauseam into the fast-paced but far-fetched plot. Basically, "Analyze This" boils down to a series of impromptu encounters staged between the increasingly paranoid Vitti and the neurotic Dr. Sobel about the mobster's unhappy life in the most outlandish places and at the worst times.

Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal look like they had a blast. Their comic horseplay in "Analyze This" is infectiously funny. Both actors give marvelously self-depreciatory performances. Crystal is unbelievably bearable for a change because Ramis casts him as the straight-guy. Some of Crystal's scenes with De Niro resemble vintage Abbott & Costello routines.

Vitti: "Do you know who I am?" Sobel: "Yes, I do." Vitti: "No, you don't." Sobel: "No, I don't." Vitti: "Have you seen my picture in the papers?" Sobel: "Yes, I have." Vitti: "No, you didn't.".

Writer & director Ramis and his scribes lose the light touch toward the end. The final scenes are as stiff as a cement overcoat. When Vitti cannot attend a crime family summit, Jelly forces Dr. Sobel to masquerade as their consigliore. Crystal's gangsta shtick is cute, but the scene is labored. Eventually, Vitti shows up and admits to his mobster cohorts that he wants out. Of course, no American movie is going to let a racketeer like Vitti off the meat hook, so Primo and Vitti shoot it out as the Feds close in to arrest them. At fade-out, Dr. Sobel visits the reformed Vitti in prison. Clearly, Ramis and his scenarists eschewed comedy and embraced 'crime doesn't pay' propaganda!

No, "Analyze This" is neither as brazenly farcical as "Jane Austin's Mafia!" nor as polished as Prizzi's Honor." Nevertheless, this Robert De Niro & Billy Crystal comedy is a funny enough movie that anybody who enjoys Mafia comedies shouldn't skip.