'Analyze That' is a sad disappointment

When you follow up a fairly passable film about a neurotic and slightly mad Mafia boss, who goes to an equally neurotic and slightly mad shrink, with one exactly the same, you're in trouble.

Analyze That

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Anthony LaPaglia, Joe Viterelli

Cert: 15.

I don't feel well, doctor!

When you follow up a fairly passable film about a neurotic and slightly mad Mafia boss - played by De Niro - who goes to an equally neurotic and slightly mad shrink - enter, Billy Crystal - with one exactly the same - the original was, of course, Analyze This, so the lack of imagination in the title serves as a warning - you're in trouble.

In making a sequel, what you need to be is innovative, original, and full of sparkling new ways in which the characters can grow.

Alternatively, you can be lazy and cobble together a sad disappointment such as this.

De Niro - as local hood Paul Vitti - is about to get out of prison and is in need of a couch session. He selects the dotty psychiatrist Dr Sobel - Billy Crystal - and there is much bantering of feeble one-liners.

It's a sad follow-up in that nobody associated with it clearly brought any inventive imagination to it: it's a comedy that irks rather than amuses, the characters are made of thin cardboard, and the only thing that gives us pause for thought is how so much talent could be so monumentally thrown away.

Star Rating: 1/5