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Analyze This movie review

Analyze This

What would you do if you were an under-achiever psychiatrist and a mob boss suffering from panic attacks turns up at your office?

This, of course, was one of the interesting sub-plots in Grosse Pointe Blank, here it is the subject of the film. Billy Crystal plays the psychiatrist and Robert De Niro the mob boss.

According to producer Jane Rosenthal, "Bob (de Niro) was concerned about whether or not he would be parodying himself in this material. After all, he could wind up mocking the closest thing Robert De Niro has to a franchise character."

But decided De Niro, "I was also thinking that the time had come for me to poke a little fun at myself."

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Director (and co-scripter) Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters), said, "I would never do a movie that trivializes violence. I thought this movie could be done only if everything was played for real, if things had real impact, if you didn't allow the audience to weasel out of any responsibility by saying, 'it's fun, a romp'.

" So my first step was to sit down with Billy and Bob and discuss the approach. I also told them that the thing I wanted to say in this film was that, in order to break the cycle of violence, you have to deal with these issues (fear, grief, rage and built) in young men. Generally, gangs are formed because unexpressed feelings of guilt and rage fester, and I wanted to show a young audience that as our character, Paul Vitti, learns to deal with his repressed and sometimes frightening feelings, he's able to break the cycle of violence. It's possible. Yes, the film is a comedy and we were never going to lose sight of that. But a comedy can still say something meaningful."

With so much thought and such professionals, it's impossible to imagine Analyze This as less than a hit. It offers an intelligent enough script, with the right ingredients: a beginning, middle, end, point, premise. There is a lot of fun in this story, and it will bring back memories which may not have been meant (there's a bar scene reminiscent of The Right Stuff).

The only problem with this film is that there is a suspicion that Robert De Niro is not quite comfortable falling apart at the scenes, he is required to have panic attacks and crying jags that just don't work. His breathing is all wrong. Yet he has played vulnerable characters in the past, So we really don't know why the panic scenes in Analyze This let the rest of the film down.

Billy Crystal plays the underachiever psychiatrist well, Liza Kudrow gives a workmanlike performance, but has little to work with. It's a good fun film, but not the best that this cast and crew could do.

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Due for Australian release March 11, 1999
See also:
Robert De Niro also appears in Sleepers, Great Expectations, Cop Land, Jackie Brown, Wag the Dog and Ronin.

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Check out what's happening in Reel LifeBilly Crystal also appears in Deconstructing Harry, Fathers' Day, and When Harry Me Sally
Lisa Kudrow also appears in The Opposite of Sex, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, and Mother


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Just the facts:

Title: Analyze This (1998)
Written by: Peter Tolan, Harold Ramis, Kenneth Lonergan; based on a story by Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan
Directed by: Harold Ramis
Produced by: Paula Weinstein, Jane Rosenthal, Billy Crystal (exec), Chris Brigham (exec), Bruce Berman (exec), Len Amato (co-producer)
Edited by: Chris Tellefsen
Director of Photography: Stuart Dryburgh
running time: 103
rating: TBA

The Players: Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Lisa Kudrow
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Filed: Mar-1999 : Last updated: : Last tested: 3-Jul-2014: Last Compiled: 3-Jul-2014
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