Been there, Done that

ANALYZE THAT (2002)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Originally reviewed in 2004

I thought it would be fun to see Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal as mobster and psychiatrist again, and then I realized that such fun can only be engaging if the concept is expanded, not undernourished, with comic possibilities. Such expansion never entered the minds of the filmmakers of this only sporadically funny and far less engaging sequel,"Analyze That."

Maybe Hollywood has run fresh out of ideas but can't someone come up with inventive ones. Think of the setup. De Niro is Paul Vitti, still in jail and supposedly going mad singing old Broadway tunes. Billy Crystal is Dr. Sobel, the irritable psychiatrist who has to set Vitti up with a normal existence, far away from any mob entanglements. Of course, Vitti is faking being insane and is ready to go back to work, "GoodFellas"-style. Sobel's cooperation with the FBI to take in Vitti ensures the possibility of him and Vitti getting killed. Still, Vitti attempts normalcy by failing at every single job he takes, such as selling cars, being a maitre d', etc. All this is a ruse since Vitti wants to get back into the action - once a mobster, always a mobster.

Some of this is occasionally funny and De Niro is fully animated as Vitti - of his recent roles in the 2000 decade, this is one of his best. But this sequel is desperate as it assumes that audiences will
have a rollicking time with any sort of plot thread waved at them. A subplot involving a mob war marks so much time that it may as well have been lifted from an average mob picture. The laughs are
nonexistent in the last third of the film where a huge chunk of time is wasted playing it straight rather than comical. It all culminates with a heist that seems more fitting in "The Score," which also
starred De Niro. When even Cathy Moriarty, as a rival mob boss, doesn't seem to play anything for laughs, you know this whole enterprise reeks of desperation.

The movie's few good ideas circling around Vitti screwing up every job he takes and his brief turn as an advisor for a "Sopranos"-like take on mobsters called "Little Caesar" could've been mined for some real laughs. Instead we see De Niro trying to wheedle his way with rivaling mobsters and the same old cliches involving betrayal and yada, yada, yada. A big yawn extends through the last half of the film - never a good sign for an alleged comedy.

Laughs are sparse and Billy Crystal and the remarkably underused Lisa Kudrow are simply wasted. Not as bad as "Meet the Fockers" (talk about a desperate sequel) but even in the ratio of recent De Niro pics, it is one of his most mediocre. Watch the original "Analyze This" with
some cannolis and that's that.