Product reviewsAnalyze This (VHS, 2000, Collectors Edition)

All around good. Great cast Worth over looking flaws. B

"Analyze This" has many amounts of hilarity. I got a kick out of Robert
DeNiro goofing on the kind of mobster roles that made him famous by playing a mafioso with high anxiety. Y ou have to see him cry, it's sad but hysterical!

Yes, casting him as a hoodlum headcase opposite Billy Crystal as his reluctant shrink is damn funny all by itself. They were each made for the script. The writers probably had them in mind.
It drags a little and degrades a little. In the last act Crystal is reduced to ad libbing through an over-long mock-wise guy schtick, It was something like trying to be Robin Williams and not himself.

The movie is funny, but plagued by 'long' problems and jokes that require entire scenes to set up a single zinger. But if you like that, don't worry.

DeNero is insomniac through the stress of a turf war. So he has his most trusted henchman quietly find him a psychiatrist, played with nervous hesitation by Crystal.

Their first meeting is supposed to be comically tense, but while Crystal's duress comes through clearly enough, De Niro seems to be sleep-walking through his intimidation tactics. But by the end of the scene, he's feeling pretty good about himself and it is funny. I'll give an example:

"The load?" he says, "Gone! Where is it? I don' know. Youse have a gift, my friend."

"No, I don't," Crystal says sheepishly.

"YES, you do!" De Niro glares with violent, funny compulsion.

The next thing the shrink knows, there's a huge fountain in his yard. A gift from his new client.

When Crystal tells him to take out frustration by hitting a pillow, De Niro pulls out a hand cannon and blasts holes in his couch pillow. Apprised of the meaning of the term Oedipal complex, De Niro wrinkles his nose and pronounces "@#$%&-ing Greeks." LOL!

It dragged a bit when it started on the DeNero's physiological problems disrupting plans for the Crystal's marriage to a TV reporter, played by Lisa Kudrow (but I LIKE HER!). The plot is already unrealistic and FULL of holes even though funny. Lisa Kudrow and Billy Crystal didn't strike me as an couple and it was hard to accept.

The rest of the movie is a lot of cliches ( like rival mobster Chazz Palminetri shouting "I want him dead, dead, DEAD!" and in the same breath, "Do you like these pants?") Wedding disaster cliches, then FBI coercion thrown in to create a doctor-patient confidentiality crisis that threatens to end with the Crystal getting 'whacked'.

By the time Crystal's ad lib catastrophe rolls around -- he pretends to be a Jewish-Italian consigliere representing De Niro at a meeting of top level mob bosses. The ending i felt was rushed and UN-believable. But I suppose that's budget and Holly'wierd' as oppose to Hollywood.

I'm a free-lance writer usually into horror. I like a movie like this to breake it up once in a while. OK, this movie did that. I'll forgive the holes in the story and due to an @$$ kicking cast that delivered, I'll give this an all around good. If you like the actors and the theme, OK, get on Ebay under $10 with S&H.

DTDRead full review...

Good

Good

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: tk1557