Analyze This

Analyze This (1999) is about a mob boss who starts having panic attacks. Paul Vitti can find no reason for them, cannot control his crying, and finds a psychiatrist. Doctor Ben Sobel has his own wedding coming up and has to drop everything every time his patient calls. All the comedy comes from two professions colliding. Therapy requires talking, confessing and admitting weakness; the mob forbids all three. The more Vitti goes, the less able he is to do his job. Harold Ramis directed and co wrote it. Robert De Niro plays Vitti and Billy Crystal the doctor. De Niro's part also works as a joke about his own filmography, a weeping version of the mobsters he had played for thirty years. The narration in the opening minutes imitates the beginning of Goodfellas directly. It was an unexpected hit and produced a sequel, Analyze That, in 2002. It runs 103 minutes. Good for: mob parody, the comic side of De Niro, and jokes about therapy. Less good for: it has one idea and starts repeating the same joke. Mental health is used purely as comic material. The women are functional.