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ANALYZE THAT Send This Review to a Friend
Defying the idea that sequels are rarely as good, Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are purveyors of hilarity again in "Analyze That," the follow-up to "Analyze This." The film droops a bit as the plot is worked out with heavy action, but the laughs come with machine-gun rapidity most of the way. Don't walk out before watching the outtakes as the credits roll. You'll find extra reasons to send you on your way with a smile.
This time De Niro as mob boss Paul Vitti is imprisoned seemingly in a catatonic state, except when he madly starts singing hit numbers from the musical "West Side Story." Watching De Niro belt out the Broadway lyrics is worth the price of admission. The film gets even funnier when Crystal as his psychiatrist Ben Sobel must test whether Vitti is faking a mental breakdown or not. Under FBI pressure, Sobel then has to take the mobster home with him an act as his guardian.
Screenwriters Peter Steinfeld, Harold Ramis, who directs with an unflagging sense of fun, and Peter Tolan keep the situations comically perking, as when Vitti is hired as movie consultant for a crime film and uses the filmmaking as a front for planning a real caper. But most of the laughs, the heartiest ones, come from the rapport between the two stars and from the spectacle of De Niro in a broad comedy role. He's probably even funnier this time around.
Lisa Kudrow adds comic spice as Sobel's harrowed wife, with her pained looks of exasperation and lines to match. Joe Viterelli is funny again as the lethal hood, Jelly, and Cathy Moriarity-Gentile does nicely as mob woman Patty LoPresti. Supporting cast members add the right color to this riff on crime movies. There's much inventive business in the merger of making a movie with criminals. But "Analyze That" itself is no robbery. It delivers on what it promises, and we need a good comedy in the midst of this season when the heavyweight films are being unloaded. A Warner Bros. release.
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