director
Harold
Ramis
screenwriters
Harold
Ramis
Peter Steinfeld
Peter Tolan
based on
characters created by
Kenneth
Lonergan
Peter Tolan
producers
Jane Rosenthal
Paula Weinstein
cinematographer
Ellen Kuras
music
David Holmes
editor
Andrew Mondshein
cast
Robert De Niro (Paul Vitti)
Billy Crystal (Ben Sobel)
Lisa Kudrow (Laura Sobel)
Joe Viterelli (Jelly)
Cathy Moriarty-Gentile (Patty LoPresti)
John Finn (Richard Chapin)
Kyle Sabihy (Michael Sobel)
Callie Thorne (Agent Cerrone)
James Biberi (Agent Miller)
Donnamarie Recco (Sheila)
Anthony LaPaglia (Anthony Bella)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 95m
u.s.
release: 12/6/02
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other harold
ramis films
reviewed on this website:
- analyze
this
- bedazzled
- the
ice harvest
- multiplicity
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Billy Crystal cracks Robert
De Niro up. This much we know from the outtakes playing alongside
the end credits of Analyze That, when we get to see Crystal,
as neurotic shrink Dr. Ben Sobel, improvising in a Chinese-restaurant
scene wherein Ben's meds have mixed with alcohol to numb his
lips. Crystal goes off on a tangent, sticking vegetables to his
face, and De Niro, sitting next to him, shows why he was up for
a reunion with Crystal: Apparently everything Billy does
strikes Bob hysterically funny.
Analyze That may have been more fun for De Niro
to do than it is to watch. An entirely needless sequel to 1999's
surprise hit Analyze
This, it no longer has the elements of surprise and novelty
in its favor. De Niro has since jollied it up in Meet
the Parents, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,
and Showtime, and has just hosted Saturday Night Live;
by now we not only know he can do comedy, we may suspect that's
almost all he wants to do now. When, as anxiety-stricken
mobster Paul Vitti, he pulls out his shtick from the first film
-- pointing at Ben and saying "You ... you're good,
you" -- it feels like a catchphrase that never caught on.
The first film exhausted most of the odd-couple possibilities
between Ben and Paul; the second one just feels exhausted.
Here, the gimmick is that Paul
has faked insanity to get out of jail and has been placed in
Ben's custody. Ben is charged with the responsibility of getting
Paul a legit job and making sure he doesn't fall back into mob
life. But mob life pulls him back in anyway; two rival gangs
(one headed by Cathy Moriarty-Gentile, whose scenes with De Niro
22 years after Raging Bull should sizzle more than they
do) want Paul's allegiance, and his old "family" (including
Joe Viterelli as the amiable flunky Jelly) wants him back in
the fold. Ben has to deal with Paul's dilemma as well as his
own: Ben's wife Laura (Lisa Kudrow, spinning her few lines off-center
with a snappish passive-aggressiveness) doesn't want Paul --
not to mention his sexually voracious girlfriend -- under her
roof.
Why did Harold Ramis want to
direct this? Didn't he learn anything from Ghostbusters II?
Comedy isn't built for longevity over a series of films (with
a few exceptions), and Analyze That often feels sketchy
and half-hearted, a string of situations rather than a solid
premise. Ramis and his writers spoof The Sopranos (which
premiered on HBO around the same time Analyze This came
out, and which name-checked the film in its second season, I
believe) by having Paul offer his services as consultant to a
mob show called Little Caesar, with an uncredited Anthony
LaPaglia using his natural Aussie accent as the show's star (LaPaglia
isn't given enough funny opportunities to spoof De Niro; I would've
rather seen Alec Baldwin -- who does a mean Bob impression --
in the role). The film is full of missed opportunities, like
a young gangster who calls himself Al Pacino, or Ben's son (Kyle
Sabihy) getting hired as Paul's driver, or the way Ramis introduces
sexy, funny actresses like Callie Thorne (as a leggy FBI agent)
or Donnamarie Recco (as Paul's girlfriend) only to forget they
exist.
No, the movie would rather
indulge in a car chase (note to Ramis: car chases are dead air
in most any comedy) and a gold-heist climax. I wish Ramis had
stayed with the idea of Paul trying to go straight instead of
blowing it off in a montage of Paul failing at various nine-to-fives.
Instead we get psychobabble on the run, and various laws broken
by Paul and Ben with no consequences. And except for that
bit in the Chinese restaurant (the outtakes, by the way, are
funnier than what they actually used) and the embarrassing early
scenes when Paul fakes dementia and sings (terribly) tunes from
West Side Story, neither De Niro nor Crystal do anything
they didn't do three years ago. Analyze This came from
nowhere and introduced us to Robert De Niro the born-again comedian;
it worked because Ramis took one of De Niro's characters from
the world of Martin Scorsese and paired him with schlumpy, skittish
Crystal. Analyze That is just more of the same, watered
down and stripped of its novelty. "I have two words for
you: pants suit," says Lisa Kudrow to the leggy, skirted
FBI agent. I have three words for Ramis and company: Familiarity
breeds contempt.
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