Analyze That needs therapy

Analyze That is not the kind of film that can be labeled one way or the other, because its quality level is such a series of contradictions. It's terrifically funny, but rarely laugh out loud. The cast is, of course, superb (can we even ask for more than a Billy Crystal/ Robert deNiro combination with on-screen chemistry?), yet their characters are—at times—excruciatingly boring. This film wants very badly to be a great comic success, and it has all the basic pieces, but lacks some intangible charisma, some indescribable spark.

Maybe the vacillating quality of the film is merely a reflection of the characters' own fickleness; DeNiro's mobster Paul Vitti and Crystal's shrink Ben Sobel always seem to be hovering indecisively—one minute, mafia boss, the next, television producer; one minute psychiatrist, the next, mafia subordinate. Of course, their wavering into new territory is virtually the entire basis for the film's humor, and rightfully so. But it's just that a mafia boss as a mafia boss isn't really funny…at all. And that sentence probably defines the lackluster end quality of the film.

As testament to the truth of the above statement, the beginning of the film is truly hilarious, as DeNiro is thrust into unusual circumstances. Commencing where prequel Analyze This left off, Analyze That opens with Paul in jail and still the boss, until a murder attempt throws his authority off balance and leaves him seemingly insane. Since the last rational phone call Paul made from prison was to old psychiatrist Ben (in an extremely funny cell phone-at-funeral scene) authorities are requiring Ben to investigate Paul's sanity.

A slightly unbelievable string of events leaves a flustered Ben, floundering in the wake of his father's death, stuck as Paul's chaperone. All very funny, especially when Paul's tell it like it is culture collides with Ben's upper-middle class tedium. Lisa Kudrow, playing Ben's wife, epitomizes the underlying snootiness when Paul's brashness pushes her over the edge.

The culture clash is hilarious, and De Niro plays it for all its worth. When he has exceedingly loud intercourse with a trashy gangster ho, the awkwardness of the typical affluent couple is extremely entertaining. But the film wastes no time worsening itself; the audience is yawning far before the halfway point as the plot switches from a full-out mafia boss Paul in suburbia, to a slightly less funny Paul-searching-for-a-job scenario, to a completely anticlimactic and dull Paul-returning-to-his-old-career situation.

How many mafia movies has De Niro made? The exact number's insignificant, what's certain is that we sure as heck don't need another one. Only brief moments of comic relief follow in the next few scenes, and those come from Ben faltering in unfamiliar territory—the underground crime setting.

It's bewildering that the film should deteriorate so rapidly. With a clever script, undeniably great acting, and a build-up clearly leading towards a massive explosion of funniness, Analyze That founders itself halfway through with the separation of Crystal and De Niro, ending up a merely mediocre comedy with one very lame ending.