Virtually the same team - director Harold Ramis, actors Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro and Lisa Kudrow, and writer Peter Tolan - have come together for the sequel to the successful mobster-meets-shrink from four years ago, and have produced a virtually identical film in tone and shape, despite some inconsequential plot retooling. You have to suspect that the continuing reverence accorded to The Sopranos, with its similar juxtaposition of bloodletting and therapy, is pretty much the only reason this got off the ground.

But if you saw the last one, you know what you'll be getting: De Niro doing his GoodFellas routine - all too authentically - as Paul Vitti, a wise guy who needs to get in touch with his feelings; Crystal as the nervy psychiatrist, Ben Sobel, who can't help getting involved with his client. Last seen in Sing Sing, Vitti does a Vincent Gigante, and secures his release by faking dementia. Thereafter things amble on in a thoroughly unremarkable manner, though the film-makers try for a touch of self-referential smartness by having Vitti land a job on a Sopranos-type TV show. Some of the jokes work, some don't; the best you can say is that the time passes pleasantly.