ANALYZE THIS is a comic gangster movie from director Harold Ramis. The premise of the film is somewhat corny. A mobster named Paul Vitti has lost his nerve for killing and needs a shrink. It's all so very '90s, a curious spoof of the Godfather and America's overwhelming need for therapy. You can almost see the movie's conception--a middle age writer returning from a therapy session catches a rerun of Godfather on cable and wonders what would happen if one of the Corleones had a breakdown.

The film does overcome its trite basis, however, thanks to Robert De Niro , whose rendition of the troubled mobster is truly masterful. In fact, the film would be lame without him. De Niro has such a presence from all those bloodletting Scorsese films that somehow transfers well into this comedy. Billy Crystal plays the shrink, Ben Sobol, and is effective enough for the most part, in a role that was obviously written for him.

The supporting roles are less satisfying. Lisa Kudrow does not excel as Sobol's whining fiancee and we don't see enough of Chaz Palminteri as Vitti's rival. Joe Viterelli is charming as Jelly, Vitti's sidekick. He's stupid and he's supposed to be.

The dialogue is molded around the jokes, which comes thick and fast, with a liberal sprinkling of sight gags, for example when Sobol refuses to do Vitti's bidding and suddenly finds himself swimming with the sharks--literally.

The whole tenor of the film is pitched fairly low, keen to amuse without provoking much thought. Hence Vitti's psychosis is easily solved with Freud for Dummy's and there's plenty of time to lay on the violence, which serves little purpose other than to spoon-feed the testosterone pool.

Nonetheless, the movie works remarkably well with De Niro at the helm. The film's title, Analyze This, is a false lead. The movie is totally mindless and will not hold up to any analysis--but it's fun.