ANALYZE THAT

ANALYZE THAT is pretty much DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS meets ROAD TO PERDITION. There’s the rescue of the insane-acting mobster who wants to get out of jail (with the comical testing by the psychiatrist to see whether the bad guy’s faking it). There’s the wounded men with deep father issues storyline. Finally, there’s the whole familiar setting of the sleazy nightclub with scantily-clad women dancing and big, scary Italians killing each other in the middle of the day for the slightest infractions.

The story begins with big bad incarcerated mob boss, Paul Vitti (Robert DeNiro) trying unsuccessfully to reach his psychiatrist, Dr. Ben Sobol (Billy Crystal), who is at his father’s funeral. The next thing the doc knows is that Vitti has gone mad and is singing WEST SIDE STORY show tunes, followed by periods of catatonic episodes.

Ben goes to New York’s Sing Sing prison to check him out and performs several hilarious tests to see whether or not Vitti is faking it. He concludes that Vitti is truly, but temporarily, insane and that he just needs a good halfway house with minimal stress. A U.S. attorney demands that Ben himself watch over Vitti in his home until he recovers. The spineless doctor agrees, much to his wife, Laura’s (Lisa Kudrow), dismay.

Ben finds out immediately that Vitti has been faking his insanity, but it’s too late. He has to bring the mobster home, and of course the sparks begin to fly. Although Ben insists that Vitti get therapy and a good, honest job, and a slight attempt at therapy is made, Vitti is intent upon having loud sex, displaying public rudeness of every kind (including flashing an elderly woman and pretending to masturbate), and getting back into the swing of the mobster lifestyle.

He doesn’t tell the doctor his plans, though, and he pretends to take a job with a film director, as a consultant for the mobster characters in a new movie. Vitti insists on bringing in “the family,” a group of two-dozen or so intimidating-looking mobsters, to teach the actors how it’s done. One of the big mob bosses is a woman, who confirms that one mob is pitting Vitti against the other, and soon big deals are going down on the set.

As the layers of the story unfold, Dr. Ben and Vitti must face several important questions. Will Vitti ever change, or is it “once a mobster, always a mobster?” Can Dr. Ben overcome the hurts from his own childhood and be able to impart some truth that will bring Vitti the transformation he needs? How will everyone act when the roles are reversed, and Dr. Ben is suddenly in the care of Vitti?

ANALYZE THAT could have been a fun and witty winner for the holiday cinema buff. But, no! The producers had to put in more than 100 foul words (lazy language, lazy writing), most of them the “f” word. They had to have scantily clad women in strip clubs and mobster violence at every turn. One would think that one could avoid some of these offensive elements in a comedy! Like many other Hollywood movies over the past two years, the writers are able to portray and discuss the importance of having a loving but strong father, but not adequately resolve them or show the way to true psychological and spiritual healing.

All in all, ANALYZE THAT has some good laughs and some talented actors, but the enjoyment is far out-shadowed by the offensive elements of language and sexual content. This will likely hurt an otherwise hopeful box office outlook.