1999 was a big year for movies. It was the year that The Matrix‘s slow-motion bullet influenced action movies for years to come. It was the year American Beauty won Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Oscar fans have been arguing about it ever since. It was the year Pokémon jumped from Gameboys and TV to the big screen. And worst of all, it was the year that disappointed a generation of Star Wars fans with the release of The Phantom Menace.
To celebrate that landmark year in film’s 20th Anniversary, The Pop Break continues its year-long retrospective of 1999’s most influential (at least to us) films. The series continues with staff writer Matt Gilbert reflecting on director Harold Ramis’ comedic send-up of the gangster genre, Analyze This.
As the ’90s came to an end, it took with it the gangster film genre as we knew it. Long gone were the days of The Godfather (as it laid dead and buried by its own third installment), but the genre at least enjoyed a twilight renaissance with Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, Carlito’s Way and more, featuring the murderers row of gangster film legends like Pacino, De Niro, Cannavale and Pesci. But by the end of the century, gangster films lacked both the novelty and the taboo sense of irony that was inherent to their premise of violent criminal protagonists.
If Analyze This was not solely responsible for the complete lampooning of the most influential cinematic movement since the western, it deserves at least half the credit. A mere two years after Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco, the 1999 Harold Ramis-directed comedy not only simplified the complex underworld of mafiosos like Al Capone or Michael Corleone, it utterly de-fanged it. It stripped the scary criminal element away entirely, turned the scariest thing in cinema into a circus and openly mocked it for taking itself too seriously. Whether it was by coincidence or fear of the box office, the gangster genre never enjoyed the same level of dominance of the pop culture sphere (at least at the movies) after Analyze This connected with audiences in 1999.
The premise is one so perfectly primed for comedy that it could sell itself on a single (albeit perfectly composed) image—let alone a sentence. The most feared mafia boss (Robert De Niro) in the city forces a terrified psychiatrist (Billy Crystal) to help him understand his suppressed emotions. It is a plot that lives and dies on the casting of its central characters. Crystal is one of the most convincing and naturally funny comedic protagonists of the decade, and De Niro plays an over the top rendition of the archetype that put him on the map. The opposites-attract dynamic between the two stars is one of the biggest contributing factors that has helped the movie endure for 20 years.
The therapy scenes play out as predictably as anyone with a cursory knowledge of psychology could expect, in a set of locations that feel deliberately derived from The Godfather. The comedy is born from the competing reluctance of Paul Vitti (De Niro) and Ben Sobel (Crystal). Sobel is terrified and resistant to help a man who could kill him with his bare hands if he refuses, while Vitti is desperate to maintain his reputation as a fearsome mafia don and cannot expose his sentimentality as a crucial meeting with his rival (Chazz Palminteri) looms.
Scenes like the wedding in which Vitti’s life comes crashing into Sobel’s play brilliantly thanks to Crystal’s ability to be shocked and horrified at the same time (special shout out to Lisa Kudrow as Lauren, the most patient and understanding fiancée of all time). The two characters also come from completely different worlds, which leads to some great moments as their lives and lifestyles crash into each other with hilarious results. The “just hit a pillow” scene is still a guaranteed laugh every time.
Over the course of the film, Sobel becomes increasingly fascinated by Paul’s case and wants to help him, whereas Vitti has to be dragged kicking and screaming to confront his emotions rather than continue to bottle them for the sake of appearances.
The story’s biggest weakness is arguably in its pivotal scene at the big meeting. Crystal essentially reenacting The Godfather in a room full of real mafiosos is the stuff of comedy legend. Sobel even uses his psychiatry skills on the other criminals to sell his shtick and buy himself time. But it feels like the end to a completely different movie. It plays like the climax of an arc about Ben overcoming his own nerves and meekness. But no part of the movie makes it clear this is a focus. The story has always been about Paul and his emotional growth. And as great as it is to watch Billy Crystal riff for 10 minutes to a dumbstruck Palminteri, it’s a bit of an anticlimax after the all-important breakthrough at the wharf.
The comedy in this film ages remarkably well as many classic comedies do. But if there is one aspect that feels like it does not belong in here: De Niro. Perhaps De Niro was functioning on autopilot the entire time or was simply tired of playing the same part for 30 years, but he feels miscast. His character is meant to remind us of the better characters he has played rather than to join the ranks among them. It plays off his burly physique and preceding filmography to fill in the holes in his character rather than explain or imply it itself.
The scenes of stereotypical mafia violence and aggression come off like he is trying too hard and his exaggerated Sicilian accent in casual conversation feels so obviously like a performance of what the audience expects a mafia boss to be. I hate to say it, but it even carries echoes of Viggo Mortensen in Green Book. And the scenes when Paul breaks down into sudden fits of crying are just awful. I believe Robert De Niro can show vulnerability and emotion when the script demands it, but the choice made here to make his tears as overt and exaggerated as possible make the scenes in question almost insultingly bad. De Niro is a good actor, of course, but something is fundamentally wrong when he feels out of place in a role that could only have worked for him.
At the bare minimum, Analyze This survives as a testament to the comedic brilliance of Harold Ramis behind the camera. But whether intentionally or not, it also lasts as a film that put an unofficial cap on an entire genre for the end of the century. Even the gangster films that followed in the 21st century like Road to Perdition tore the archetype down from untouchable pedestals dueling for power and instead humanized them into more relatable figures. Though far from a masterpiece or a career best for Ramis, Crystal or De Niro, Analyze This still lives as both a great comedy and a decent gangster flick with an arsenal of jokes and gags that withstand the test of time.
