Analyze That

Review by Clint Morris

A few years back, veteran tough-guy Robert De Niro decided it was time to try something different: comedy.

Surprisingly, it worked and his self-mocking turn in Harold Ramis' Analyze This was a victory, making a conglomerate of chiming cash registers salsa in elation.

But not content with his effort in the comedy genre being a once-off, De Niro decided to take an unforeseen vacation in the genus playing it quaint for successive follow-up's like Meet the Parents and the substandard Showtime.

His latest comedic release, the sequel to earlier hit Analyze This, might finally be verification for De Niro that it's time to return to the dramatics he started out in...

Re-teaming him with Billy Crystal, Analyze That once again centers on the heretical relationship between psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Crystal) and jittery mob boss, Paul Vitti (De Niro). Only this time, Vitti's not just paying intermittent visits to the shrink's office - he's napping it up in his spare bedroom.

Pretending he's gone batty, Vitti is released into Sobel's custody where it's wished-for he takes some time-out and find himself a promising day job. Instead, Vitti - not unpredictably - gets back into the game, using his job as a consultant on mafia TV series "Little Caesar" as the ultimate cover.

While Analyze This was a tight, compact, mildly amusing film - the sequel is a pale imitation.

What starts out good, goes up in flames by mid movie - leaving the audience to see through a dawdling, mostly routine re-coupling. Its only real uniqueness is the 'Little Casear' element, but even that is an obvious rip-off of the better-handled Get Shorty (1995).

In addition, a turn by Australian Anthony La Paglia - playing the star of the aforesaid TV show within the film - is utterly embarrassing. His self-intended Australian accident is offensive, and his performance is discreditable. Not quite what you'd expect from someone who just headed Lantana, one of the finest films of the past couple of years.

The joke here is that La Paglia is fundamentally spoofing his own rise to fame. As a young Australian actor in Hollywood, he couldn't get any gigs, so ended up perfecting the voice of vets like De Niro - and hey presto, he soon found himself cast in gangster roles, many thinking he was an Italian American.

It could've worked a treat here - and for about 5 seconds does - but the problem is director Harold Ramis obviously has no understanding of Australians whatsoever.

While it would have been humorous to hear La Paglia's character suddenly spurt Aussie repartee - when everyone thinks he's one of NY's handpicked - we really did not need to hear another one of those scalded, exaggerated cockney turns.

I'm still finding it hard to believe that La Paglia would even go for that. But he has, and one of the film's most promising moments turns into an embarrassing sequence for everyone Australian...

But even De Niro and Crystal seem a little too comfortable in these roles. While the first film was minutely plausible, De Niro's Paul Vitti is now merely a cartoon of the character in the first film: He sings, dances, busts a vein now and then - all things the Vitti of the first film only ever came oval close to doing. Sure De Niro might have had turn it up a bit for the sequel - to draw some laughs - but not to the point of farcical.

Crystal, while evidently having a good time, has a comparatively irresolute written part this time. Sobel is almost a bore this time around. And Lisa Kurdrow, as his wife, doesn't have even one funny line - such a waste of her obvious talent too.

Analyze That - despite it's meager points - isn't a total waste of time. It's just a marginally substandard follow-up to a film that, frankly kids, wasn't as grand as the box office may it to be. A sequel was hardly necessary, so one would've hoped they'd beefed it up with more droll laughs.

While it'll play better on the small screen, Analyze That is still a rather preventable and anachronistic sequel - milking the un-milkable from a one-joke idea.

2.5 out of 5

Analyze That
Australian release: Thursday January 16
Cast: Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Anthony LaPaglia, Cathy Moriarty-Gentile, Joe Viterelli, John Finn.
Director: Harold Ramis.
Website: Click here

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