One might suspect that when you put Robert DeNiro and Billy
Crystal together in a mobster comedy and have Harold Ramis
(Caddyshack) direct it, the result will not be too deep, but
probably not half-bad either. The odd thing about Analyze This,
the new film fitting that description, is that the funniest and
best parts are also the deepest. Well, "deep" is a
strong word.
DeNiro plays Paul Vitti, a New York mafia don who's "got
stress." He can't perform in bed with his mistress; he can't
summon the nerve to kill anyone; and he's starting to have panic
attacks. Of course, he thinks anyone who uses the term
"panic attacks" must be questioning his virility. Lucky
for Vitti, Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), a shrink, enters the
picture when he accidentally rear-ends a car with a body in the
trunk. Vitti is reluctant at first to admit that he is in need of
help and insists that his "friend" has problems. Sobel
sees through the silly facade, however, which impresses Vitti
("You're good!"), and they begin therapy, much to
Sobel's dismay.
The obvious comedic consequences ensue. Vitti requires Sobel's
services at the most inopportune times, such as Sobel's wedding;
Vitti wants help, but doesn't want to talk about personal
matters; Sobel's involvement with a mobster puts his relationship
with fiancee (Lisa Kudrow) to the test; oh, and several botched
assassination attempts by rival gangster Primo Sindone (Chazz
Palminteri) are giving Vitti even more "tension."
This is all what we would expect from such a set-up, and the
laughs are delivered reliably, if predictably. The film really
shines, though, in the private conversations between Vitti and
Sobel. This is clearly where the most thought went into the
screenplay by Ramis, along with Peter Tolan and Ken Lonergan.
Each such scene is a delightful interplay between Sobel's whining
over his predicament and Vitti's macho airs; while, at the same
time, Vitti is approaching the Freudian realization that he needs
"closure" over his father's death. Except for one scene
in which DeNiro starts sobbing in a particularly hammy way, these
interactions flesh out the two protagonists' characters enough to
promote them from sitcom status to something worth watching.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the
characters, who remain resolutely one-dimensional. Kudrow, in the
thankless, annoying role of Sobel's bride-to-be, is given nothing
clever to say, which is a shame, considering that her comic
timing and range of acting were so impressively exhibited in last
year's The Opposite of Sex. In addition, she doesn't look or act
like anyone Sobel would ever get involved with. The same goes for
the character of Sobel's son: from the way their conversations
are written, you would think they had just met. Joe Viterelli,
who plays movie gangsters for a living, does his routine shtick
as Vitti's right-hand man, and Palminteri's character is just
around as a plot device. Incidentally, Palminteri was put to much
better use in Woody Allen's mobster comedy Bullets Over Broadway,
in which he played a thug discovering his true genius as a
playwright. That film was succeessful primarily because it had
interesting supporting characters.
Despite these weaknesses, Analyze This is still genuinely funny
in many parts. I think the reason is that it doesn't just assume
that putting a mobster together with a therapist is funny. The
concept that it's a healthy thing to get to the root of a problem
by talking about it is totally foreign to the culture of the mob,
in which it's more socially acceptable to "whack"
someone you find a nuisance than to deal with your emotions.
Vitti's transformation into a human being is what's funny.