Anger Management

Movie Title: Anger Management
Official Website (it might still work): Anger Management
Rating (out of 10): 7
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

Right on the heels of losing an Oscar to Adrien Brody, Jack Nicholson is back to work with a rather strange pairing of himself and Adam Sandler. Obviously, this film, Anger Management, was filmed long before Jack lost on Oscar night, but it does make for an interesting follow-up to About Schmidt. As for Sandler, the lowbrow box office king, he seems to be attempting to rise above himself and become a more refined and accomplished actor with this film following his critically acclaimed Punch-Drunk Love (I have not yet watched it). So one of them seems to be lowering himself, while the other is reaching, and they end up meeting halfway. Anyway, it does make for a compelling reason to watch.

As the story goes, Dave Buznik (Sandler, The Hot Chick) is an executive assistant (glorified secretary) in New York with a problem of not standing up for himself. His girlfriend Linda (Marisa Tomei, The Wild Thornberrys Movie) does not like this aspect of his personality, but puts up with it because she loves him. In the film, Dave heads to St. Louis for business, but never makes it there after assaulting a flight attendant (Nancy Walls), though he really doesn’t hurt her. The court then orders him to undergo anger management from anger guru Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson). Dave’s problem isn’t controlling his anger, it’s releasing it in a healthy way. Well, the good doctor basically pokes, prods, and annoys the hell out of Dave until Buddy forces the anger out of Dave. Helping Buddy, and thus Dave, is Buddy’s 12-Step group consisting of a female porn tandem (Krista Allen & January Jones), Lou (Luis Guzman, The Count of Monte Cristo) the gay guy, a sports nut (Jonathan Loughran, National Security), and just plain psycho Chuck (John Turturro, Mr. Deeds). The main part of Dave’s problem stems from his under-appreciative boss Frank Head (Kurt Fuller, The New Guy), who takes credit for all of Dave’s work and never rewards him (apparently Dave designs clothing for obese pets). The other part of his problem is Linda’s ex-boyfriend Andrew (Allen Covert, Eight Crazy Nights) who is far more successful, has a huge penis (I’m glad they didn’t show that), and hangs out with Linda way too much. But can Dave truly change, or will Andrew or even the doc run off with his girl?

This Peter Segal (Nutty Professor II) directed film was written by David Dorfman, and not Adam Sandler, which really does show in the quality of the writing (Sandler is only good at high school and college level humor). Some others in the film are Heather Graham, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Nealon, Isaac C. Singleton, Peter Spruyt, the late Lynne Thigpen, John C. Reilly, Marisa Chandler, and lots of cameos from the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Roger Clemens, John McEnroe, and Derek Jeter.

It’s interesting how the same film can have such diametrically opposed actors in the lead roles. As I stated before, Nicholson seems to be taking a step down from his norm, while Sandler is taking a step up. Regardless, both are good in their love-hate on-screen relationship. Unfortunately, some of Sandler’s humor made it into the film, which while often humorous, it still detracted from the overall quality of the film. Also, the ending is extremely corny, cheesy, lame, and whatever other similar adjective that you can find in a thesaurus. Still, the film was funny throughout, and is by far the best Adam Sandler film that I have seen thus far. This means I give Anger Management seven couches on the old scale of ten.