Analyze This (1999)

You won't be disappointed!

Powerful

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

2 of my fave movies of all times Analyze this and Analyze that.I would get surprised when people would say "My favorite Christmas movie is so and so and I watched it 3 times ". Well, NOW I watched Analyze this and Analyze that movies more than 90 times and I still watch 100 times more I was hoping and waiting for a new one. Need a 3rd, 4th, 5th, ...25th Analyze This and That movies. Perhaps Analyze Them or Analyze Him, then Analyze Her, Analyze Us ,etc... I don't care about the title but the movie content !The comedy and sarcasm mixed with serious issues is the best part. The actors playing their roles are fantastic So funny, magnificent movie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for producing this.

Analyze This (1999): Dir: Harold Ramis / Cast: Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Joe Viterelli, Chazz Palminteri: Hilarious comedy about problems too big for one person. This is a parody of the roles that Robert De Niro is accustomed too. He plays a gangster seeking professional help and Billy Crystal plays a psychiatrist who unwillingly puts his wedding on hold to assist him. Structure is handled in sitcom fashion with De Niro interrupting Crystal's life at any opportunity. Director Harold Ramis satires the gangster genre and skillfully breaks tension in conclusion. Ramis is known as a director of lewd comedies. Among his best is Caddyshack and National Lampoon's Vacation. De Niro is hilarious as he is reduced to tears over a hidden trauma overwhelming him. Crystal is great as the frustrated psychiatrist juggling his job and his personal life. One of the film's pleasures is how the conclusion is handled. Joe Viterelli as De Niro's loyal bodyguard steals moments especially when Crystal takes control and enters a potential dangerous yet funny situation. The weak link here is Lisa Kudrow as Crystal's bride who is more or less a prop. Chazz Palminteri is cast because obviously Joe Pesci wasn't available. Through De Niro we learn that there is a breaking point to everyone. Through Crystal we learn that we can make a positive impact just by giving our time. Score: 8 ½ / 10

Analyze This is a gangster comedy film that stars Robert De Niro as a mafioso and Billy Crystal as a psychiatrist.This film about a mobster seeking advice from a psychiatrist.Lisa Kudrow,Chazz Palminteri and Joe Viterelli co-star play key supporting roles.It was directed by Harold Ramis, who co-wrote the screenplay with playwright Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. Dr. Ben Sobel is a New York shrink who's becoming a little bored with his upscale but neurotic clientèle. Into Sobel's practice comes a guy with legitimate problems, Mafia kingpin Paul Vitti, a godfather who is being reduced to tears and panic attacks by stress and his guilt over his beloved father's assassination. Intimidated but also fascinated by Vitti, Dr. Sobel becomes frustrated when his mob boss patient becomes a full-time occupation, as Vitti summons the psychiatrist for his professional help at all hours and in all places, even including the doctor's Florida wedding to TV reporter Laura MacNamara. In the meantime, a power struggle is brewing with Vitti's long-time rival Primo Sidone, but Vitti begins employing the feel-good self-help jargon and techniques he's learned from Dr. Sobel to keep his enemy off balance. Just as the therapist and his powerful patient are making breakthroughs, the FBI attempts to persuade Sobel that Vitti is going to have him murdered, leading to a nearly lethal misunderstanding.It's a treat to watch Robert De Niro tweak every gangster role he's ever played as he was afforded such a perfect opportunity to flex his comedic muscles.This make it possible to get the best out of his performance as the psychologically- challenged gangster.This alone is one reason that makes this movie an above average comedy.Overall,it is a witty, upbeat comedy that is more concerned with making its audience laugh than any other of its cinematic virtues.

If there's one thing that cinema taught us: it's the inner comedic value of the gangster world. While they used to portray charismatic and one-dimensionally villainous characters in the Warner Bros pre-Code years, or tormented souls in 40's or 50's film noirs and the French new wave, one movie changed everything: "The Godfather". Francis Ford Coppola's crime epic made a world out of the underworld, a universe with codes and dress codes, names and nicknames, principles such as loyalty, Family, Omerta and as many tight-lips as there were squealers. It put morality in a world of immorality and paved the way to a never-ending fascination between movie lovers and gangsterism.Indeed, no matter how we feel when the ending credits start, the initial feeling is often fascination. And one director in particular made it all the more entertaining because it was grippingly faithful to reality: Martin Scorsese, Marty who was to Gangster films what Ford was to Westerns. His "Goodfellas" provided the most dramatic example of how cruel and amoral the gangster world could be, but how can't anyone laugh at the presentation of a colorful character like Frankie Carbone or "Jimmy Two-Times"? De Niro made his gangster film through "A Bronx Tale" but you couldn't tell when the dramatic homage stopped and the unintentional parody started. It all started with "The Godfather", and Robert De Niro is probably the most emblematic of all the actors who played gangsters. So, it is not surprising for a gangster comedy like "Analyze This" to make the most references to "The Godfather" and to have De Niro as the main protagonist, playing Paul Vitti, a mob leader with deep emotional problem, a Don who is slipping, as would say Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozo (May he rest In Peace). Harold Ramis had the richer source of inspiration and the best actor to carry it, and I guess the reason it worked so well is because, as I said, there's a lot of natural comedy in gangster movies without the need of exaggeration (Brian de Palma's "Scarface" is another brilliant example as a drama full of unintentional comedy) and De Niro doesn't need to force himself to become funny. He made the same mimics in "Casino" and it was not supposed to be a comedy, hell even Brando's performance as Vito Corleone deliberately flirted with caricature."Analyze This" is funny because it doesn't try to be so, as if it was conveying the irony of Joe Pesci's Tommy De Vito who made Henry Hill burst out laughing in "Goodfellas" and then started asking what was so funny, one of the film's most famous scenes. Harold Ramis picked the right tonality, and it was crucial because a parody would have severely damaged the appreciation of the film, there was a spoof-movie of "The Godfather" made one year earlier (Lloyd Bridges' last film), and it was a critical fail. You don't need to make funny parodies of gangster films, just pay tribute to them with a comedic tone. Well, I guess, I made this point very clear, but that's the first thing that elevates the level of "Analyze This". Now, let's get to the second thing that serves the comedy: the presence of a 'straight man', it's the role of Billy Crystal's character, Dr. Sobol, as the psychiatrist who's asked to take care of Vitti, the kind of offer he couldn't, for his greatest displeasure, refuse. Now, just imagine yourself facing Vito or Michael Corleone, or a gangster of the same caliber. You know whatever you say must content him, if a "yes" gives a "no", then say "no", and vice versa. The first interactions between Vitti and Sobol are pure comedic gold, because they always carry this threatening presence. Vitti is vulnerable enough not to get too upset and even cry sometimes, De Niro delivers one of his finest comical performances, proving again his versatility, yet he's also capable to show the face of danger to make himself clear. And Sobol is the outsider; the common man who wants no troubles and yet gets himself stuck in situations none of us would want to be trapped. When he's encountered by Jelly, Vitti's henchman in an aquatic park and refuses to meet Vitti, you find him in a shark aquarium, sometimes, the film allows itself a sort of over-the-top humor, but it's always funny.But if the film works thanks to the Crystal and De Niro pairing, the Auguste and the white- faced clown, the scene-staler is definitely the late mug-faced Joe Vitterelli as Jelly, the man who only understands one language, intimidation, killing, bribing and protecting, the Mafia ABC. When a pedant doctor tells Vitterelli he had an attack, Jelly casually gets up and close the room's curtains, he is the wink to our gangster cinematic knowledge. He's so professional in the way he carries Vitti's tasks that the way he pops us in Sobol's most private lives is absolutely irresistible. If only for De Niro, Crystal and Vitterelli, the film is worth a watch, not to diminish the merit of Lisa Kudrow, weird but efficient as Sobol's fiancé, Chazz Palminteri as Primo Sindone, Vitti's archenemy, and many faces you'd remember from Scorsese's mafia classics.Last point, the film even recreates a scene from "The Godfather", when Vito is shot in the orange stand, and when Sobol reveals to Vitti that he was playing the role of Fredo in the nightmare, Vitti's reaction said it all "I was Fredo, I don't think so?" the film remarkably interferes with the Gangster's pop-culture, denouncing its comical undertones. And it pinnacles in a scene near the end, when Sobol acts like he's the consiglieri of Vitti and try to recall all his gangster memories not to raise suspicions. That's the fundamental basis of "Analyze This" comical genius: if you don't like gangster films, you'll have fun laughing at them, if you like gangster films, you'll love "Analyze This".