Analyze This **** (1999, Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal) – Classic Movie Review 345

Director Harold Ramis’s 1999 laughter-raiser is a hilarious Mafia comedy, with Robert De Niro deliciously sending up his Don Vito Corleone role in The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Billy Crystal ideally cast as the nervous psychiatrist he goes to for help with his panic-attack ‘episodes’.

Both men are effortlessly funny. This is around the time De Niro finally got the hang of comedy and he’s so adept at it that he’s not overshone in the laughs department by comedian Crystal. Also consistently funny, just for once, is the script, a triumph for Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. It’s a great idea for a movie comedy, brilliantly carried out.

De Niro plays Paul Vitti, a New York gangster who has suddenly become anxious and panic-stricken. Local shrink Ben Sobel (Crystal) is more alarmed than flattered by the professional background of his new client – and with very good cause.

Joe Viterelli is hysterical as the main goon. Lisa Kudrow, Chazz Palminteri, Joseph Rigano, Bart Tangredi, Richard C Castellano, Molly Shannon and Max Casella also score in the hand-picked cast of worthies.

The central premise is oddly similar to TV’s then concurrent The Sopranos, with mobster Tony Soprano going to a shrink for the same kind of help for similar reasons.

The sequel Analyze That (2002) is welcome but disappoints.

© Derek Winnert Classic Film Review 345 derekwinnert.com