Even Wise Guys Need to Talk, Capiche?

Paul Vitti, “Mr. V” to his intimates, is one of New York’s most powerful gangsters. His shoes are polished, and so is his snarl; when he walks into a room, strong men panic. But, hey, being a Mafia don is stressful work, and underneath his expensive tailored suits, Vitti is a psychological mess.

Ben Sobol, Ben to his intimates, is one of New York’s least celebrated psychiatrists. It’s his father, Isaac, author of best-selling self-help books, who’s the famous one. A divorced dad who’s about to be remarried (his father has too many book signings to make the wedding), Ben spends his days dealing with suburban patients whose time-wasting problems are barely able to keep him awake.

The concept of a mobster who’s enough of a mental health mess to seek professional help is a promising one, as HBO’s superb new series “The Sopranos” is proving on TV. But despite having Robert De Niro as the don, Billy Crystal as the shrink and Harold Ramis as co-writer/director, the big-screen “Analyze This” sounds funnier than it plays. It does have laughs, but it’s unable to capitalize sharply enough on its main idea.

Part of the problem may be that “Analyze This” isn’t sure exactly what that main idea is. Three separate credited writers (Peter Tolan, Ramis and Kenneth Lonergan) took cracks at the story, and an inability to integrate different points of view is visible in the final product. “Analyze This” not only wants to make you laugh, it apparently wants you to think at least semi-serious thoughts about therapy and violence. A fine idea, perhaps, but the way it’s developed feels played out and tired.

Even for a Mafia chieftain, Vitti is an unlikely candidate for stress problems. He was groomed by his father for a career in the mob, and he’s prospered in the work. Until now, when he finds himself hyperventilating and suffering the classic symptoms of a panic attack. Except that no one is eager to use that word with Mr. V, who’s already nervous because of an impending bloody clash with rival hoodlum Primo Sindone (Chazz Palminteri).

Sobol comes into Mr. V’s life when his car accidentally rear-ends a mob vehicle being used to transport a bound-and-gagged hostage and the shrink gives his business card to Vitti’s bodyguard and right hand Jelly (a consistently amusing Joe Viterelli).

To everyone’s surprise, Mr. V. takes a shine to the buttoned-down therapist, even offering to personally clear Sobol’s entire schedule, a gesture Sobol finds terrifying. “When I got into family therapy,” he says, “this is not the kind of family I had in mind.”

Unfortunately, Mr. V’s interest in becoming a patient coincides with Sobol’s pending wedding to neurotic Miami TV newswoman Laura MacNamara (Lisa Kudrow), who is unnerved by the way the mob starts infiltrating her fiance’s life. The FBI is interested as well, as is Primo Sindone, who detects a new tone in his rival and demands to find out exactly what this thing called closure is all about.

All this can be made to sound amusing (and is in fact thoroughly entertaining on “The Sopranos”) but “Analyze This” is hampered by too many people going through the motions. Kudrow has hardly anything of interest to do, Crystal’s performance feels overly familiar, and De Niro falls back too readily on what can only be called Mafia shtick.

Co-writer/director Ramis, responsible for “Groundhog Day” and many other comedies, is a gifted man but “Analyze This” is both too unfocused and overly familiar. It has enough comic energy to generate some chuckles, but even when we laugh we’re always wondering why the jokes aren’t funnier.

* MPAA rating: R, for language, a scene of sexuality and some violence. Times guidelines: sporadic violence and murder.

‘Analyze This’

Robert De Niro: Paul Vitti

Billy Crystal: Ben Sobol

Lisa Kudrow: Laura MacNamara

Joe Viterelli: Jelly

Chazz Palminteri: Primo Sindone

In association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment, a Baltimore/ Spring Creek Pictures/Tribeca production, released by Warner Bros. Director Harold Ramis. Producers Paula Weinstein, Jane Rosenthal. Executive producers Billy Crystal, Chris Brigham, Bruce Berman. Screenplay Peter Tolan and Harold Ramis and Kenneth Lonergan, story by Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan. Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh. Editor Christopher Tellefsen. Costumes Aude Bronson-Howard. Music Howard Shore. Production design Wynn Thomas. Art director Jefferson Sage. Set decorator Leslie E. Rollins. Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes.

In general release throughout Southern California.