Disarming and dangerously funny

By Ewan McDonald

You gotta love a guy who can take the proverbial out of himself. Especially when he's a guy who's not noted for his ... well, lightness of spirit.

So if you've enjoyed Robert De Niro's hard-nosed tough guys over the years, check out his latest movie. It'll raise more than a snigger.

Because he plays the nasty guy from Casino, Heat, Cop Land, GoodFellas alongside Billy Crystal in a comedy, Analyze This. And, just as it did in the blacker Wise Guys, it works.

De Niro is Paul Vitti, head of a New York crime family but breaking down in tears at soppy TV commercials and undergoing panic attacks when he has to go to the office and have someone killed. This is not a good look for a mobster and if word got out to his rivals ...

He's put in touch with Ben Sobel, a New York therapist whose speciality is helping people to resolve their relationship problems. And who has a couple of his own: his father is in the same trade and conspicuously more successful than Ben; he is about to remarry and his teenage son is about to meet his long-distance choice.

Vitti needs "closure" urgently because America's big crime families are to meet in two weeks to sort out a turf war. Sobel needs the sessions to be closed urgently because he wants Vitti out of his life so he can get married. After all, his first attempt fails when ... no, sorry, that's one of the funniest bits.

And the FBI wants to find out what's going on. So does Sobel's would-be wife (Lisa Kudrow from Friends, who is only required to be the wallpaper so does a passable job).

De Niro is unexpectedly good at taking the role we expect and twisting it around; Crystal is unexpectedly funny after some real clunkers; and the whole thing is neatly tied together by writer-director Harold Ramis, who also came up with Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day.

Snapshot: "Sure, the plot shoots off on improbable tangents but, littered with sly references to everything from Wise Guys to The Godfather movies, it's an excellent comic diversion. I was chuckling for several days," wrote our critic, Peter Calder.

* Sibling rivalry goes about as far as it can in Hilary and Jackie, the biopic of England's musically gifted Du Pre sisters.

Based on the controversial biography A Genius in The Family, written by Hilary and their brother, Piers de Pre, it stars young British talents Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) and Rachel Griffiths (Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding), with David Morrisey as Hilary's husband and Jacqueline's lover.

As director Anand Tucker's first movie opens, flautist Hilary shows greater potential. Desperate to win her parents' admiration, Jacqueline practised obsessively on her cello.

Before she turned 20 Jacqueline was performing around the world; at 22 she married superstar pianist Daniel Barenboim. But within a year Jacqueline had developed multiple sclerosis and died, aged 40, in 1985.

The film is in two stories. Hilary's chapter begins when Jacqueline leaves to perform in Europe. Hilary (Griffiths) stays at the Royal Academy of Music, marrying young conductor Kiffer (Morrisey) and retiring to the country to raise children.

Jacqueline (Watson) returns, demanding the most important thing in her older sister's life - her husband. As you might guess, this causes just a wee crack in the close ties between the sisters.

From there, the movie slips from character study towards soap-opera, though a superior one, as you'd expect from one with Oscar-nominated performances from the two leads.

Snapshot: Interesting, unless you're washing your hair that night.

* Griffiths also turns up in Divorcing Jack, stealing the show from some of those whose names figure further up the credits.

They are David Thewlis (Naked, Seven Years in Tibet), who plays Dan Starkey, a Belfast newspaper columnist as Northern Ireland is about to elect its first Prime Minister. His wife catches him out with Margaret, a young student (Laura Fraser). Margaret's murdered, saying "Divorce Jack" as she passes away in his arms.

Starkey is now a murder suspect and on the run. Armed with dangerous one-liners, a nun with a gun and - though he doesn't realise it - the answer to the "Divorce Jack" mystery, he has to outwit the police, the future Prime Minister and a terrorist. Before they outwit him.

Snapshot: For those who like very black humour. Y'know, like violence and jokes about kneecapping ...