Analyze This

ANALYZE THIS (1999) **1/2

Reviewed on 2/27/99

Analyze This has three credited writers and three was probably too many. It feels like it's trying to go in several different directions at once and none of them gets anywhere. Robert DeNiro is a stressed out mob boss who "hires" psychologist Billy Crystal to relieve his anxiety attacks. Unfortunately, this central relationship and actually all character relationships in the movie are left underdeveloped. Crystal is awkwardly stuck as the main character who doesn't have the main internal conflict in the story. Potential subplots with Crystal's son and his father lead nowhere, and future second wife Lisa Kudrow is barely even window dressing. What we're left with though is still a pretty funny movie. A lot of the jokes are obvious, but they are funny more because of the actors' delivery than the jokes' actual content. A dream sequence re-enacting a scene from The Godfather almost shot-for-shot is not itself so funny as the reaction it inspires from DeNiro later.