Analyze That
It’s been three years since mobster Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) was rescued from an emotional time bomb by his therapist Ben Sobol (Billy Crystal). Now spending his days in prison, Vitti finds himself the target of numerous assassination attempts, and realizes that faking madness is his only way out of the slammer. Released into Sobol‘s custody, Vitti must assume a normal life, meaning jobs in car sales and restaurant greeting, and living with the Sobols (including Lisa Kudrow). Vitti finally finds success as a consultant for a mob television show called “Little Caesar,” but is more interested in finding out who’s trying to kill him. Tagging along for the ride is Sobol, who is also attempting to get his life back together after the death of his much loathed father.
While reuniting most of the cast, the writers, and the director of 1999’s “Analyze This,” one cannot help but to feel that the filmmakers have left out most of the sparkle that would make this normally “sure thing” sequel such a blast. There is a decided lack of magic to “Analyze That,” and what remains on the screen falls somewhere in between courtesy laugh material, and downright befuddlement at some of the judgment calls from the writers. Most of the film’s first act is centered around Vitti’s attempt to get released from jail, his scheme involving faking a mental incapacity that only allows show tunes from “West Side Story” to pass through his lips. It isn’t a terribly funny punch line, nor is it sold with the energy that I’d imagine younger, hungrier filmmakers might have put into it. The letdown of the prison sequence is emblematic of the rest of the picture, which connects with laughs here and there, but nowhere near the level of “This.”
If you really want to get honest, “Analyze This” didn’t even need a sequel, with “That” tasting like too many licks of the frosting. It’s a fluffy, obviously fun-to-make comedy, but writers Peter Steinfeld, Harold Ramis (who also directs), and Peter Tolan don’t push their film very far, insisting that the very sight of these character will be enough for the yuks to come. And it is, for about 25 minutes. Then you start to feel bad for the movie after a while, as the complex and hilarious script for “This” has been reduced to characters walking into frame saying “hey youze guys” and then expecting the audience to eat it up for the sequel. In the three years since “This,” popular culture has been swallowed by “The Sopranos,” and the various knockoffs that followed. “That” is suddenly playing a game of catch up. The script wisely sends up “The Sopranos” with the “Little Caesar” subplot, but that’s about it for outright cleverness. The rest of the picture rehashes the first film, relying on the DeNiro/Crystal interplay, and dredging up some of Vitti’s childhood memories for instant sympathy.
Thankfully DeNiro and Crystal do bring back their easygoing back and forth for “That.” With the script giving them very little to work with, the duo dive off on their own, trying to grasp laughs from anything they can get their hands on. As evident in the end credit outtakes, DeNiro and Crystal are having a ball, with only a sporadic joke landing true hilarity in the finished film. Ramis has some fun casting ideas (Cathy Moriarty-Gentile portrays the new crime kingpin in the film, reuniting 22 years later with her “Raging Bull” co-star DeNiro), and the return of character actor (though it always seems to be one character) Joe Viterelli, as Vitti’s right hand man, Jelly, brings some much needed laughs to the show.
I’ve seen worse, more pointless excuses for sequels, but rarely ones that don’t bother even trying to top themselves. Stick with the original, and try to forget how shamelessly the filmmakers tried to cash in with this follow-up.
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