Analyze This is one of the biggest comedy films of the last couple of years and certainly merits its popularity – it’s a wonderful, wonderful movie and one of the funniest things around on Sky at the moment. Made by Harold Ramis for Warner Brothers, it features Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal as the main players and they give tour de force performances. I don’t generally like Crystal but he is certainly on outstanding form here. Lisa Kudrow from Friends is the other star.
It’s worth just recapping on what Harold Ramis has done before and saying a few words about him, before I move onto the movie itself. He came to real prominence in the 1980’s as one of the three main protagonists of the two Ghostbusters films, alongside the more well known Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, but prior to that he directed Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation. He also directed Murray in Groundhog Day in 1993 and has numerous other directing and acting roles to his credit over the last twenty years or so. He seems to now favour directing.
As for the two stars, Crystal has been disappointing in his films to date - his most famous performance was in When Harry Met Sally, but even then he was smug and insufferable. De Niro, in sharp contrast, is one of the finest character actors of his generation, appearing in great films like Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, The Godfather Part II, Cape Fear and Raging Bull, among dozens of others.
Regarding the film, I can only summarise it as being absolutely marvellous fun. It tells the tale of a mafia mobster and gang leader in modern day New York, Paul Vitti, played by De Niro, who suddenly collapses under the stress of his lifestyle and starts to undergo panic attacks. He’s two weeks away from a major Mafia meeting and has to be on peak form, so he’s desperate to sort himself out and enlists the help of a psychotherapist, Ben Sobel, played by Crystal, in the task of putting his
head back together again.
De Niro is well known for his Mafia roles in previous films and the smash hit playing of the young Don Corleone in The Godfather series way back when, who later developed into the better known later life hood played by Marlon Brando. He also starred brilliantly as Al Capone and in Goodfellas. In Analyze This, he’s playing it strictly for laughs and is playing well up to the stereotypical hood. The language is near the knuckle, as it normally is in modern day Mafia films of the modern era, but it’s all the funnier for the swift wordplay, sarcastic asides and relationship between De Niro and Crystal.
The film opens back in 1957, with De Niro narrating the tale of the mob travelling to a farm for a meet, where they are ambushed by the Feds. We have an early glimpse of the humour here when a cow gets too close to the Don’s car and one of the gunmen pulls a gun on it, telling it to get away or he’d pump it full of lead. De Niro’s father, who was a mobster before him, excaped the showdown by kidnapping a tractor and making his big break for it.
We’re then brought right up to date in modern times America and the introduction of De Niro and Crystal. De Niro is the victim of an attempted hit by his rival, Primo Sindone which wipes out one of his associates. Immediate switch to the sight of Crystal as a shrink in counselling sessions with one of his patients. He is coming up to a holiday and a wedding to his fiance, Lisa Kudrow. He’d like to tell his clients what he really thinks but is prevented by his ethical code. We’ve got the amusing scene of what Crystal would like to say, followed closely by what he actually says.
They’re two opposite extremes of the spectrum here, De Niro and Crystal, and there’s a certain riotous chemistry between them and the repartee and quick put downs are symptomatic of a wonderful screen pairing. I hope they don’t try and recreate the magic in another film, because it’s doubtful whether they’d ever quite be able to manage the perfection they build here. It’s built around a juxtaposition of extremes that somehow gels perfectly and allows the dynamic duo to turn in vituoso playing.
Moving on, Crystal is caught in a traffic jam on the way to see his parents. He is trapped in his car with his large teenage son who continually tells Crystal how great his own father, also a shrink is and you can see the tension and irritation in Crystal’s eyes and the generation gap that will be a key feature in this tale of the relationship between two men and their fathers. Anyway, Crystal gets distracted and runs into the back of a car driven by De Niro’s right hand man, Jelly, played by Joe Viterelli. There’s a body in the boot and they’re keen to avoid any trouble or visits by the police so they tell Crystal to forget it. He gives Jelly his card and that’s when his problems begin.
Undeterred, Crystal drives on to a party at his father’s only to be told that they’re not coming to the forthcoming wedding because his father has to attend a book signing which clashes with it. There’s great sparring between father and son and a clear tension there.
Elsewhere, De Niro has started to experience panic attacks and hyperventilation. He has to hurriedly rush out of a meeting. He puts the chest pains down to heart problems and they rush over to the local hospital. The doctor who checks him out assures him that is heart is fine. De Niro: “What do you mean, my heart is fine, do I look fine? I’ve had eight heart attacks in the last two weeks.” “It’s just panic attacks.” “Panic attacks, panic attacks? Do I look like a guy who panics?” The affrontery of the man! De Niro’s assistants try to explain the error of his ways to the doctor as the screens are pulled across in classic fashion.
Despite this show, however, De Niro takes the commenst to heart and asks Jelly to find him a head doctor. “What, you need plastic surgery?” “No, my head, but it’s not for me, it’s for a friend.” “Boss, can I ask one question – this friend? Is it me?” Jelly has Crystal’s business card and decides he is to be the one privileged to be called to De Niro’s assistance. Lucky fellow.
From the very first meeting, they’re off. De Niro: “Do you know me?” “Yes.” “You don’t know me.” “No.”
“You seen my picture in the paper?” “Yes.” “No, you ain’t.” “You’re right, I don’t even get the papers.”
“Why don’t you tell me why you think you need thereapy?”
“I told you, I don’t need therapy. One more thing, if I talk to you, and you turn me into a fag, you die.”
Against all his better judgement, Crystal agrees to help De Niro, but his problems start to impinge more and more on Crystal’s life and his upcoming wedding, such that a body falling ten floors out of a hotel window ends the first ceremony.
I won’t go too much further into this, save saying that the quick and witty interplay between the two men and De Niro’s masterful parody of a Mafia hood are classic and make this a marvellous, wonderfully funny film. It never lets up, although it peters off quite poorly towards the end when Crystal deputises for De Niro at the Mafia meet and starts to play the big mobster. This is a pretty embarrassing scene and shows what could have happened with this film if Ramis hadn’t been quite as skilful. Crystal takes a fine, understated role when he’s being dominated in the scenes with De Niro, but that’s because he just gets the sniping asides – when he has to carry the plot and the action and take centre stage, he’s not half as appealing and is actually quite annoying. That’s one of the reasons I disliked him in When Harry Met Sally and his other cinema vehicles. However, that’s only a minor lapse and is easy to excuse and overlook when you’ve got the rest of this wonderful epic.
De Niro is far and away the outstanding talent here and dominates this film, but there’s a witty and clever film and the timing and playing of the two leads AS A UNIT is a wonder to behold. Heartily recommended.
Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Comedy - Director: Richard Boden, Mandie Fletcher, Martin Shardlow - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Hugh Laurie, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed, Tim McInnerny, Tony Robinson, Rowan Atkinson
Cast Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal together in a film and it should be a sucker's bet ... more
as to who's going to be funnier and who's going to give the more nuanced performance. Somehow, though, De Niro walks away with most of the laughs, mugging gleefull...
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Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal team up with Lisa Kudrow, Chazz Palminteri and ... more
director/co-writer Harold Ramis to make you a comedy offer you can't refuse in this laugh-out-loud mob hit. De Niro, deftly spoofing the wiseguy roles that have been a stap...
Cast Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal together in afilm and it should be a sucker's bet as ... more
to who's going to be funnier and who's going to give the more nuanced performance. Somehow, though, De Niro walks away with most of the laughs, mugging gleefully...
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Advantages: De Niro Steals the Show, Crystal is fairly good, works well between them both. Disadvantages: Lisa Kudrow has been typecast into her Phoebe from Friends role again.
Andy.mack 13.10.2003 (13.10.2003)
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Review of Analyze This (DVD)
Advantages: Great interplay between De Niro and Crystal with some hilarious stereotyping Disadvantages: Sorry, but Lisa Kudrow IS Phoebe Buffay wherever she goes
jess0910 21.08.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Analyze This (DVD)
![Analyze This [DVD] [1999]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78548187.jpg "Analyze This [DVD] [1999]")
May 15th, 2001
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