John Cusack Focus: Bullets Over Broadway Movie Review

This may be less a John Cusack film than a Woody Allen film, but it's far enough against type for Cusack that I think it's interesting to include it in this short compendium. I could just as easily file this review under my "Modern Classics" heading. This film almost made my list of the top 5 Woody Allen films. So close!

Of all of Woody Allen’s films, Bullets Over Broadway might be the most underrated. And though John Cusack is just one in a long line of actors to basically perform the Woody role on screen, his is probably the best. Not only does he get the mannerisms, the rhythms of speech, and the mania one hundred percent right, but somehow he makes the role his own. It’s less straight imitation than internal adaptation.

Analyze This Movie Review: De Niro as The Godfather of Comedy

This review was first published in the Connecticut College Voice in March 1999.

Listening to a mobster unload his emotional stress to a psychotherapist is not a particularly new concept. Currently, there is an HBO series called “The Sopranos” in which a mobster occasionally visits an analyst, and two years ago, we watched as John Cusack, portraying a hitman, found himself by talking to a psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Blank. So, it should come as no surprise that director Harold Ramis’s newest comedy, Analyze This, concerns a panicked Robert De Niro seeking help from psychiatrist Billy Crystal.

De Niro plays Paul Vitti, a John Gotti-like New York Mafia boss who finds himself overcome with anxiety attacks and unexpected floods of tears. This is an unacceptable state to be in for a man of his profession. His friends and enemies are like animals – they sense weakness and move in for the kill. By a stroke of fate, Ben Sobol (Crystal) is chosen as the man to help him. Needless to say he is reluctant at first.