Analyze This (1999)
Directed by Harold Ramis
Countless wiseguy films are spoofed in this film that centers on the neuroses and angst of a powerful Mafia racketeer who suffers from panic attacks. When Paul Vitti needs help dealing with his role in the "family," unlucky shrink Dr. Ben Sobel is given just days to resolve Vitti's emotional crisis and turn him into a happy, well-adjusted gangster.
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What critics compared Analyze This to
Harold Ramis's film is one of these latter vehicles that tartly leverages De Niro's "wise guy" shtick for some uproarious laughs, whether it's his Mr. V. (a New York City crime boss, ostensibly fashioned after John Gotti) making a thuggish retort to his shrink (Billy Crystal in his best role since City Slickers) after learning the Freudian definition of "Oedipal complex" -- "Freud was a sick fuck and so are you" -- or a delightfully cheesy dream sequence where the duo re-enact the infamous fruit-market hit scene from The Godfather.
From general characterizations to an amusing scene with a guy in a car trunk and a clever dream spoof of -- and insider joke regarding -- a scene from "The Godfather" (to which De Niro comments "I was Fredo?
The show is a pensive, droll, nuanced meditation of what it means to be an Italian functioning in an America where Italian is an eponym for pizza and "The Godfather."
One of Ben's dreams is a parody of the Marlon Brando shooting scene in "The Godfather" that goes on too long without much payoff; and a gangster meeting with other dons, at which Ben has to fill in for Paul, never really delivers the comic fireworks you're hoping for.
The movie surrounds them with fairly lively violence (the shrink himself ends up in a shark tank at one point), but a lot of the mob scenes are satires of "The Godfather'' and its clones.
In Analyze This, he doubly tests his comic mettle with a role that is not merely funny, but a parody of the blood-curdling Mafia hard guys he played in The Godfather and Goodfellas.
Did he hope this'd be his Analyze This or Meet the Fockers?
Director Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me,” “Margaret”) is such skillful writer (he co-wrote the screenplays to “Analyze This” and “Gangs of New York”) that the viewer is constantly kept on the balls of his or her feet, poised in anticipation of information that arrives just when it should, not a moment before.
Lonergan has also scripted Hollywood comedies, including Analyze This, and he finds a funny side to the way these men avoid talking about what they need to talk about, instead diverting deep reserves of feeling into loaded conversations about car heaters and hockey.
Having co-written the Sopranos -lite comedy Analyze This (1999), the acclaimed playwright made his directorial feature debut with You Can Count on Me (2000), a Sundance festival favourite that earned rave reviews and Oscar nominations.
His match in every way, Robert De Niro has great fun in playing with his big screen image (as he did in 1999's "Analyze This").
Robert De Niro, having already proved his ability to do shtick in "Analyze This," furthers his breadth as a comic artist while Ben Stiller--who can deliver laughs simply by standing sheepishly and wordlessly just beyond a airline boarding ramp at the schoomarmish instructions of a ditzy reception agent--is De Niro's match.
DeNiro puts a hard, channeled sternness on his performance that is not all that different from his gang boss role in "Analyze This."
However, one wise thing the filmmakers did do was find Stiller an ideal, on-screen foil, in the person of Robert De Niro, who is quietly carving out a new career for himself with a series of loopy comedy roles ("Analyze This").
Translated, this might mean that Robert De Niro only became box office gold when he turned to comedy, to parodying his own intense machismo in "Analyze This".