Mafia Blues

A complete comedy farce. Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are both great fun and so is Joe Viterelli as De Niro's hilarious security guard Jelly. It is amusing. Nothing is wrong with the film accept its language. No one should complain about its content. Its content is meant to be funny. When mobster Paul Vitti(De Niro) is suffering anxiety attacks for some odd reason, he sees a shrink named Ben Sobel(Crystal) to solve his tragedys and ways to move through the mob. The idea is small and it stretches out too far but its still great fun. To me this is De Niro's best comic performance of all. The most hilarious part in the film has to be where Crystal is in the church getting hugged by a stranger. An 8.3/10.

This wasn't "hilarious" as everyone told me it was, but it was still very enjoyable and pretty solid entertainment. Although a comedy, it has violence and a lot of profanity.

Robert De Niro, as usual, is excellent and once again surprises viewers with his comedic talent. He plays a mobster (familiar territory) but one who needs psychiatric help. He's hilarious when he's crying! His "shrink" is played by Billy Crystal, in an untypical low-key character role. My favorite in this film was Joe Viterelli, the fat guy-mobster who has a few very funny lines. Viterelli is one of these guys you see in a ton of gangster movies and is always interesting.

The female lead in here, Lisa Kudrow ("Laura") was not appealing to me, character-wise. Overall, a funny movie and much better than the sequel.

The charm of this movie is in the concept and perfect casting. Robert De Niro satirizes his past performances as a Mafia boss. And Billy Crystal as the unwitting psychiatrist who gets involved in the mess. It's truly funny and entertaining. The movie mostly benefits from very good direction by Harold Ramis and excellent performance by the actors and not just De Niro and Crystal.

The verdict: 4 of 5 stars.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Analyze This is not one of the best comedies ever,but it's certainly one of the best,inventive and most original in a long while.The script and comic timing are an ingenius success,and it's also intelligently compact,giving it little room to become ponderous and repetitive.Veteran gangster stars Chazz Palmenteri and Robert DeNiro gleefully lampoon their nasty gangster roles,to both chilling and uproarously funny effect.In the scenes where his charecter cries,DeNiro manages to stir up the emotions,but because he and his henchmen have such repulsive attitudes towards everyone,it's hard to like them,a detrimental thing in a comedy.The Italian-American's chemistry with co star Billy Crystal probably was'nt the most inspired or clever ever ,and Lisa Kudrow,not an overly talented performer anyway,is unintentionally wasted here in a mostly pointless role,and,like DeNiro,her relationship with Crystal is'nt the easiest to digest.Despite these minor hiccups however,AT is a hugely superior comic success ,with moments of absolute laugh out loud hilarity,and moments to touch the heart.Very impressive.****

Overall, I found "Analyze This" a very amusing comedy, well worth seeing. There are a number of laugh-out-loud lines, a screamingly funny parody of "The Godfather", and a well-chosen cast that's very funny. Movie is also very well photographed, and is never boring for an instant.

Some minor objections, though:

(1) Robert DeNiro was funny and believable - except for his crying scenes. These scenes came across as somewhat forced.

(2) Forgotten subplots. There are a couple of subplots - one with Crystal's relationship with his father, encounters with some FBI agents - that are started up, and then dropped and forgotten about. I strongly suspect this version we saw was cut from on originally longer print.