Analyze That (2002)

Analyze me this: "Analyze That" (AT) makes as much of a comedy as "Jaws" makes a popular science film on Discovery channel. Got the point? OK let me try this: AT is not funny, it's humiliating. It was humiliating to watch De Niro tearing down the memories of a once great actor.

How long has been since we saw him act, I mean act la De Niro. Let's see. The last memorable performance was in "Cape Fear" in 1991 and since then the only worth mentioning are "Frankenstein", "Casino" and sure "Analyze This". The rest complete crap - "The Fan", "Sleepers", "Jackie Brown", "Ronin", "Meet the Parents", "The Score" to mention a few. Don't forget, we are talking about Robert De Niro. Is he blind? Doesn't he read the scripts? Or is just about money again. 20 million for this sequel-now that's laughable.

Don't waste your time with this movie. It's not that you gonna hate it, De Niro and Billy Crystal are in it, but it's a waste of time. AT is so contrived with an idiotic plot and the jokes are so stupid with most of them actually repeated from "Analyze This". For me this movie ranks below 5 out of 10.

Fmovies: "Analyze That" is a sequel to the 1999 film "Analyze This" that rather misses the reason why that latter film was enjoyable.

"Analyze This" was a movie that worked fairly well as an amusing comedy because of the chemistry between Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. Their relationship was the heart of the picture, and the audience gravitated towards it.

De Niro and Crystal are no worse here, but the script makes the mistake of not focusing on them enough. Instead, the majority of the film follows De Niro and his plans to get back into the "business." This persists until the final act, which turns into the most cliched mafia picture you've ever seen, nearly devoid of humor all together.

All of this considered, however, the movie does feature some scenes between De Niro and Crystal, and when their doing their thing and bantering with each other, it's just as funny as the first film. That being said, I simply wish there was more of it.

"Analyze That" is not a terrible film, it's simply a mediocre and forgettable one that doesn't reach even the simple enjoyability of its predecessor.

25 May 2003. I only managed to see about a third of the movie I'm told. All right I was sleepy and tired to begin with so I fell asleep, but I deliberately wanted to after about thirty minutes or so of this movie. It was totally awful. I can't quite figure out why, but the characters were irritating, the script seemed stale and bland. The acting seemed force and not really heart-felt. This was one of the worst movies I've seen.

Analyze That fmovies. Analyse This had a freshness and uniqueness of concept that carried right through the film and made it an enjoyable fluffy comedy. Analyse That falls very adeptly into the stereotype of the sequel that tries to emulate the original and fails miserably. The jokes are the same but somehow less funny, the new characters add nothing notable, Robert DeNiro seemed lost and unsure of his character, Billy Crystal was just plain annoying at times and the story was alternately ridiculous and pedantic. Are we really supposed to be curious about whether or not he's going straight? And in the end, did he?

6 is actually a bit generous, consider it a 5.5 rounded up.

But that's just my two scents. ;)

All the revues said this was just o.k. but I have to tell you different. This film had me in stitches from the start. I am amazed how Robert DeNiro can be so strong in serious roles and yet he does comedy as good as any one. People like Robin Williams are trying to cross over to serious roles as is Jim Carrey and this guy makes it look like anybody could do it. Unreal !! Two thumbs way up for this one.

The rise of the producing team of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun, Flashdance and sundry other subtle works exploring the deepest secrets of the human heart) in the 1980s introduced the High Concept movie - one whose premise and entire raison d'être could be summed up in a single sentence, preferably referring to other hit movies – for example Days of Thunder was `Top Gun with cars.' 1999's Analyse This may have been a High Concept movie – Mafia Don Sees Shrink With Hilarious Results – but it had a lightness of touch that made it seem less like a focus-group product and more like an offbeat little comedy.

Unfortunately for Analyse That, the success of The Sopranos has made Mafioso-psychiatrist relations almost as much a cliché as two cops, one steady and by the book and the other an impulsive maverick, who initially hate each other but bond over the course of several gun battles. More fundamentally, the concept of Analyse This hasn't been taken any further. There could be some entertainment to be had when Robert de Niro's character takes a job as an advisor on `Little Caesar', a Mafia-themed TV drama, but the main joke is that the actor playing the Don is an Australian. It struck me that both actors who played Don Corleone in The Godfather series have now taken the mickey out of the mafia – Brando in The Freshman and now de Niro in the Analyse This and That series (if there's a sequel, what will it be called? Analyse The Other?)

Lisa Kudrow is grossly underused – one gets the feeling that much of her part ended up on the cutting room floor. Both Crystal and de Niro are pretty good (this is called `damning with faint praise' in the trade, if you're wondering) There are some pleasing shots of New York, and David Holmes' soundtrack has its moments (although is nothing to his work for Ocean's Eleven or Out of Sight) Analyse That is not a bad film, just a rather forgettable one. Puts the `sleep' into `sleeps with the fishes.'