mob therapy

by Thomas Burchfield

POSTHOC EMOTICON RATING--- :-)

"Analyze This", a new Mafia comedy starring Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal, now playing at Bay Area Theaters, at first sounds like one of those Hollywood high-concept ideas that sounds great in the initial pitch but goes soft, flat and stupid by the time the curtain rises.

But, happily, not here. In fact, "Analyze This" is a mostly very funny ribtickler farce that posits the idea that even the worst thug can be as needy and dysfunctional as the rest of us law-abiding types.

After an amusing opening that relates briefly, but with pleasing accuracy, the history of the Mafia since 1957, we're introduced to Paul Vitti (DeNiro), lifetime made guy, who, after many years of grueling preparation, at last must take the throne of one of New York's crime families. Things couldn't be worse for La Cosa Nostra these days what with mass defections to the law and rampant loss of discipline among the rank and file. Add to this is a simmering gang war between Vitti and fellow boss Sidone (Chazz Palminteri), another ruthless pitbull who couldn't be more displeased at Vitti's rise to power.

But Paul's worst problem is that this hardest of eggs has gone soft-boiled. He's crippled by panic attacks. He bursts out crying at inopportune moments (like gunfights). He can't get it up. And, most perilous to his command and authority, he can't bring himself to whack a guy like he used to.

Enter Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), New York psychiatrist, a mensch cringing in the shadow of his vastly more successful psychiatrist father and stuck with a boring roster of clients whose problems are cringingly banal.

Then one night, in one of those coincidences that makes movies like this possible, Ben bumps his car into the back of a limo containing an extra (and unwilling passenger) in the trunk. The driver, Vitti's assistant Jelly (Joe Viterelli), refuses Ben's offer to do things legally, but does take Ben's business card. Jelly gives the card to Paul and before Ben knows it, the most fascinating, exciting and life-threatening client he could ever hope to have is in his office and *demanding* his help . . . or else it's sleep-with-the- fishes time.

This fish out of water story turns out to be an ingenious collision between two very distinct worlds; between the high-minded, upper-class intellectual and that of the low-life thug. The mushing together of these separate cultures sparks endless comic clashes as Sobel slowly and reluctantly uncovers the secret fears and guilt of this most terrible lawbreaker, while Vitti singlemindedly turns Ben's cozy life into the shambles of hell.

"Analyze This" is full of wonderful bits of business and dialogue throughout: a gangster frantically duct tapes the trunk of the car that Ben has struck to hide the body inside; Vitti offering to "clear" Ben's patient roster in order to make room for himself; Vitti complaining he can't even talk to his mother after Ben explains the Oedipal complex ("Fuckin' Greeks!" he mutters); Vitti's enemy Sidone ordering one his thugs to go find out the meaning of "closure". The film evokes a peppy, zany spirit most of the way through thanks to the screenplay by Peter Tolan and director Harold Ramis. Ramis is not the most graceful or fluid comedy director around, but his script and colorful, enthusiastic cast more than compensate for his occasional lapses. The comic exchanges are plentiful and snappy throughout. But there are one too many climaxes and the film, especially at the end, succumbs to an excess of those "moments of understanding" that are rife in current Hollywood comedies.

While Crystal is funny as Sobel, the real powerhouse here, of course, is the greatest movie gangster of our time, Robert DeNiro. Method actors, because of the gravity they bring to the table, are not noted for doing the comic dance, but DeNiro has been a strange and rare exception. As he has in movies like "The King of Comedy" and "Mad Dog and Glory", he uses his weight and sullen intensity to joyously magical effect, instead of trying to dispense with it and "go light". He plays Paul Vitti straight, even bursting into tears while watching a sappy insurance commercial. He perfectly captures this gangster's obtuse selfishness. It's a performance of deadpan grace without a bit of mugging or sly winks. The effect is comparable to when straight faces like Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges first went off their rockers in movies like "Airplane."

But it's even better, because, while those actors are simply good journeymen, DeNiro is a *great* actor. To see someone of his measure take a role he's been so identified with and turn it so gracefully on its head creates that ecstatic and elusive state of mind that all comedy strives for: the one they call joy. The audience I saw "Analyze This" with reached it, too.

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