"Actor: Michael Straka"

1
  • Analyze This / Analyze That [1999]Analyze This / Analyze That | DVD | (21/03/2006) from £9.03   |  Saving you £3.96 (43.85%)   |  RRP £12.99

    Analyze This: De Niro deftly spoofing the wiseguy roles that have been a staple of his estimable career plays powerful New York crime family racketeer Paul Vitti. Crystal always one joke ahead of sleeping with the fishes is shrink Ben Sobel who has just days to resolve Vitti's emotional crisis and turn him into a happy well-adjusted gangster. Yes Sobel is a family psychiatrist. But surely this isn't the kind of family he had in mind! Analyze That: They locked up

  • Analyze This [1999]Analyze This | DVD | (03/04/2000) from £4.55   |  Saving you £9.44 (207.47%)   |  RRP £13.99

    Cast Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal together in a film and it should be a sucker's bet as to who's going to be funnier and who's going to give the more nuanced performance. Somehow, though, De Niro walks away with most of the laughs, mugging gleefully through Analyze This, a buddy action-comedy about a mob boss (De Niro, naturally) suffering from panic attacks who makes a shrink (Crystal, naturally) an offer he can't refuse--actually, it's not really an offer, it's a command. The good doctor is forced to help the gangster get in touch with his feelings. Had the brilliant TV series The Sopranos not underscored how thin and formulaic director-cowriter Harold Ramis's approach to such potentially rich material actually is, the movie--a hit in cinemas (and De Niro's biggest film ever)--would seem more fresh. De Niro is definitely a hoot as the ever milder menace and Crystal actually concentrates on giving a credible performance opposite the acting legend (alas, he doesn't turn his character's fear of his patient into inspired comedy, as Alan Arkin did in Grosse Pointe Blank). The conclusion devolves into the requisite gunplay and Chazz Palminteri and Lisa Kudrow are criminally wasted as an opposing mob boss and Crystal's fiancée, respectively, but overall, Analyze This is breezy fun. --David Kronke

1

Please wait. Loading...