When Jim Carrey ventured from his usual facially-contorted silliness to an almost-half-serious role in The Truman Show, people were amazed that he had the range. When Robert De Niro regularly bounces from sensitive dramas to action films, to comedy, we expect it. And we enjoy it. In Analyze This, De Niro goes the comic route, playing a mob leader who calls on an unwilling psychiatrist (Billy Crystal) when he decides he needs some therapy.
The conflict between Dr. Ben Sobol's usual mainstream life and that of the interloping gangster, Paul Vitti, is played for big laughs. Not only is Sobol uninterested in working for an organised crime kingpin, but he's also heading off to get married to a television reporter (Lisa Kudrow). Despite his best efforts, Sobol finds himself dogged by the gangster at every turn. They interrupt his therapy sessions, his social life and even his wedding. He tries to quit, but who can say 'no' to an organised crime leader?
Analyze This gives us a strange combination of Francis Ford Coppola-like gangsters and Woody Allen-like neurotics, and it works. Although it's hard to imagine a mob boss visiting an unknown shrink completely out of the blue, De Niro and company do it with such panache that we don't worry about little issues like plausibility. After a while, we just accept that a gangster experiencing panic attacks might respond this way. Sobol's reaction, painted into a corner as he is, also strangely rings true.
De Niro's comedic timing is superb, and he delivers his lines in the usual De Niro way. He isn't acting. He is Paul Vitti. While few actors compare favourably to De Niro's talents, Crystal does as good a job as he can as the perpetually-perplexed Dr. Sobol. His performance is uneven, inexplicably leaping from spunkiness to wimpiness and then back again, but this is forgivable. I might be a bit inconsistent myself, if a mob leader barged into my life.
The only question that really matters here is whether or not Analyze This is funny. And it is. The 'fish out of water' premise is played both ways. We see the gangster trying to get in touch with his feelings, and we see the therapist struggling to survive in the mobster's world. Both scenarios offer plenty of opportunities for humour, and the laughs are frequent and full.
