Analyze This (1999)
Grade: B-
Cast: Billy Crystal, Robert DeNiro, Lisa Kudrow, Chazz Palminteri, Joe Viterelli
Director: Harold Ramis
Rated R for strong language, some violence, a scene of sexuality


Usually, when Robert DeNiro does comedy, it isn’t a whole lot different from his dramatic stuff. The reason we know to laugh, I think, is something in the direction; it isn’t in the acting, because in almost all of DeNiro’s comedic roles, he is giving the same dialogue delivery and he basically has the same personality (alright, so maybe his facial expressions are more exaggerated in comedies), but there seems to be a nonexistent laugh track that cues a humored reaction. For example, find one difference between Jimmy Conway (“Goodfellas”) and Paul Vitti (“Analyze This”). Except that the latter sees a therapist and cries over cheesy commercials.

“Analyze This” takes DeNiro’s general persona—the gangster—and pokes fun at it. In concept, “Analyze This” is a one-joke movie, but it is smart and funny enough to milk other funny jokes out of its central one. The joke: a powerful mobster needs a therapist, and starts visiting one. Amusing joke, and “Analyze This” gets plenty of mileage out of it, not throwing it out the window. If only it had not been such a flawed comedy, because it has the potential to be brilliant.

The therapist is Billy Crystal and his future wife is Lisa Kudrow, because he needs to have something at stake when Vitti calls him out for midnight sessions. She is important to the plot, but she might as well not be, because she gets possibly one funny line in 104 minutes and that is quite a step down from her hilarious “Friends” character of Phoebe. Other important characters: Jelly (Joe Viterelli), a large and very funny mobster; Crystal’s son, who seems to be built up to be important, but some of his scenes were probably cut; and Primo Sidone (Chazz Palminteri), who wants Vitti dead.

If there is one problem with “Analyze This” (and there are in actuality much more than one) it is that the plot is top-heavy. Primo Sidone should have been cut out; why not just have the movie consist of DeNiro going to Crystal with problems? That alone is funny, and Kenneth Lonergan (of “You Can Count On Me”—he co-wrote this) is a smart enough guy to think something up to elevate it above a gimmick. Some of these meetings get repetitious, but I am confident that the filmmakers could have breathed some life into it with a little more thought. Instead, there has to be a major plot device like the fact that DeNiro’s life is at stake, and the one where DeNiro is continuously endangering Crystal’s relationship with Kudrow. Sidone isn’t in the film much, and that’s good since he isn’t played well at all by Palminteri (which is surprising, since he did so much good with his Oscar-nominated turn in Woody Allen’s hilarious “Bullets Over Broadway”), but he still makes a dent in the film’s overall effect.

DeNiro, as Vitti, is hilarious. The one thing I disliked about his performance is when he had to cry. It was fairly funny the first time, but the second time it grows unfunny. In theory, it’s funny, but it’s too over-the-top. Wait, let me clarify myself: the crying thing is initially very funny. It just gets old. My boredom is intensifying my reaction into something much more negative than it actually was.

Most of the time, though, Vitti ain’t crying, and it’s funny. Not only is DeNiro, in some ways, making fun of himself, he’s having a great time doing it. Crystal is a pretty good straight man, but one of the best moments is when he has to pose as a mobster. At first, he really sucks, which has us thinking that we’re set up for an amusing scene of comedic embarrassment, but it heads in another direction as Crystal turns the tables and becomes the most intimidating at a meeting filled with mobsters. Looking back, this was a predictable outcome, but that doesn’t make it any less funny. And anyway, I didn’t predict it at the time.

The film also has other clever touches, such as when Crystal has a dream straight out of “The Godfather”—Crystal is the Vito Corleone of the dream (ironic because DeNiro played Vito in “The Godfather Part II”), and DeNiro is his son, as Crystal is shot in the street. Paul’s reaction doesn’t have to do with what the dream meant, but how he was portrayed in it (“I was Fredo? I don’t think so.”) Also funny is when Crystal brings up the Oedipus complex and DeNiro is disgusted by it (“You’re saying I want to [have sex with] my mother? Have you ever seen my mother?”).

“Analyze This” is not without its comedic highlights, and yet in the end it is sunk by too many subplots that are too brief and yet too distracting, as well as an overlong length (just over 100 minutes isn’t too long, but it sure seems like it). I doubt it, but I have hopes that the sequel, December 2002’s “Analyze That”, will seize the potential that “Analyze This” nibbled at but never truly bit into. If not, the franchise (and it just seems plain wrong to be calling it that, but Crystal claims to be game for a third film) is still not without its merits. I mean, it sure is better than “Mickey Blue Eyes”.


-Alex, October 2002