ANALYZE THAT

A mafia biggie is released from prison and put into the reluctant custody of his unstable shrink.

CAST: Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Joe Viterelli, Cathy Moriarty, Joey Diaz, Jerome LePage, Joseph Bono

DIRECTOR: Harold Ramis

"De Niro's shoulder-in-the-ribs mugging, which is not much more amusing than his dreadful singing, is enough to give you second thoughts about the comic career he launched with 'Analyze This'--which has quickly descended into aggressive dreck like 'Showtime' and 'Analyze That'...Crystal is pretty much reduced to playing De Niro's straight man...Lisa Kudrow is little more than a highly paid bit player...'Analyze That,' which beats even its feeble gags into the ground, is aimed at audiences who find endless screaming matches and crotch-grabbing scenes hilarious." -- Lou Lumenick, The New York Post

"... a kind of mob vaudeville show in which there is not much difference between a whacking and a 'West Side Story' ditty delivered in mob dialect. The ludicrous finale is a rendition of 'Somewhere' bellowed on a waterfront promenade facing Lower Manhattan...a loose-jointed series of skits, laced with running jokes that poke mild fun at mob movie clichés and therapeutic psychobabble...Given the success of both phenomena, it was probably inevitable that 'Analyze That' plays off 'The Sopranos' in its show-within-a-show concept. Although they may be cousins, the artistic gap between them is as large as the chasm separating a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch from 'Crime and Punishment.' -- Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"What seemed like a clever idea the first time feels like a retread the second...What we get in 'Analyze That' are several talented actors delivering their familiar screen personas in the service of an idiotic plot." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"The new movie plays better than the original mostly because the filmmakers are no longer trying so hard to impress with all that sincere couch talk...The jokes are delivered with all the surprise you get with filmmaking on cruise control, but Ramis and Co. seem to be having a good time and every so often they do manage to slide in a bit that's so wily and understated it nearly avoids detection." -- Manohla Dargis, The Los Angeles Times

"Nothing here seems as funny as it did in 'Analyze This'... The most surprising thing about the movie is the clumsiness of Harold Ramis' direction...Ramis has never quite descended to this sort of boffo laugh-getting before. His pacing is off, and his talent for offhand gags that catch you on the rebound is nowhere in sight. Movie comedy isn't in such great shape that we can afford to have one of the few commercial directors who showed anything even close to a sensibility join the ranks of the hacks who are willing to bop you over the head for a laugh." --Charles Taylor, Salon

"...a serviceable comedy without distinction that depends more on the inspiration of its stars than on its pre-fab script...I'll give low marks to whoever came up with the plot — but kudos to whoever wrote the draft that inserted the film's solid set of one-liners...If this series continues, better that they follow the pattern set by the 'Lethal Weapon' series: Dispense with plot altogether and just let the stars riff." Marshall Fine, The Journal News

"The movie just goes nowhere. It's stuck in that no man's land between comedy and banal movie mob action, and it delivers on neither of these impulses with any force... For gangsters with funny problems and a whiny shrink, I'll take the great Tony S. any day of the week." -- Stephen Hunter, The Washington Post