Analyze This

Directed by Harold Ramis, Analyze This follows psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) as he’s strong-armed into treating a notorious mob boss (Robert De Niro’s Paul Vitti) and, perhaps predictably, finds himself drawn into his new patient’s less-than-savory activities. It’s a promising setup that’s employed to watchable yet far from stellar effect by Ramis, as the filmmaker, working from a script written with Peter Tolan and Kenneth Lonergan, delivers a lackadaisical comedy that never quite manages to achieve total liftoff – which is surprising, to say the least, given that Crystal and De Niro are exceedingly good in their respective roles (and this is to say nothing of the somewhat irresistible chemistry between their respective figures). There’s nevertheless little doubt that Analyze This possesses its fair share of compelling moments and sequences, and it’s clear, too, that the picture sporadically does an effective job of satirizing the myriad of mob movies that have partially inspired it. The degree to which the movie drags within its relatively plot-free midsection remains an obvious problem, however, while the rather anticlimactic (and, unsurprisingly, overlong) climax ultimately ensures that the whole thing concludes on a less-than-captivating note – with the end result a passable comedy that really could (and should) have been so much better.

**1/2 out of ****