ANGER
MANAGEMENT
Rating:  (out of 5 stars)
Director: Peter "Livingston" Segal
Producers: Barry "Hershel" Bernardi, Derek "Douchy"
Dauchy, Todd "Jimmy" Garner, Jack "Pootie"Giarraputo,
John "Jingleheimer" Jacobs and Joe "Hyman"
Roth
Writer: David "The Dorf" Dorfman
Director of Photography: Donald "Looky" McAlpine
Cast: Adam "One-Note" Sandler, Jack "Jack"
Nicholson, Marisa "Oscar" Tomei, John "Jesus"
Turturro, Luis "The Only Funny Person In The Whole Damn
Movie" Guzman
Visit the IMDB page
for full cast and crew |
Click the photo to buy merchandise from Anger Management |
Review by: Dan
Tester
4/13/03
Two horrors came to "full circle"
resolutions in this second week of April, 2003. The first, of
course, was the fall of Saddam Hussein and his one-way ticket
back to hell from whence he came. Full circle. But even more appalling,
and curiously in the very same week, Adam Sandler has returned
to theaters in another alleged "comedy." Full circle.
This is full circle because, of course, last year Sandler dazzled
us in the surprising and unconventional Punch-Drunk
Love, one of the best films of 2002. Punch-Drunk
was an examination of the Sandler film persona; an investigation
into the inner demons that haunt his lead characters, culminating
in a wonderful resolution. I gave Sandler a lot of credit for
his performance as the meek everyman with rage issues, and naively
felt that a career metamorphosis may have begun. Unfortunately,
these hopes were sadly dashed without prejudice as I endured Anger
Management. While Sandler portrays another "Barry Egan"
type here, the mess around him is so unbearably unfunny and worthless
that I must now take Sandler's Punch-Drunk badge of honor
away from him, because it is evident that Punch-Drunk's
success was a direct result of a filmmaker with a vision, not
just studio monkeys with dollar sign sunglasses. It is now very
apparent Sandler was just along for the ride.
I can't remember the last time I laughed
so little in a comedy with such potential. If memory serves, I
think I may have chuckled twice during Anger Management's
two-hour running time. To put this in perspective, I actually
giggled a couple times at the 2-minute Daddy Day Care trailer,
I chortled at least once at the 2-minute Joe Almighty preview,
and today as I lounged lazily on my couch flipping through the
channels, I happened upon the Cartoon Network showing an old Scooby
Doo cartoon with special guest star Jerry Reed, and I laughed
twenty times more during this half hour than I laughed at any
of Anger Management.
WARNING: There are spoilers ahead, but
they will only be true spoilers if (1) You got Alzheimers since
the last Hollywood movie you saw or (2) you got bonked on the
head by a pancake skillet and suffer from amnesia since the last
Hollywood movie you saw or (3) you never saw a Hollywood movie
before (this could also feasibly include people with Alzheimer's
or people who got bonked on the head by a pancake skillet). Anyway,
for some reason, you have been warned.
Adam Sandler plays Dave Buznik, a mild-mannered
designer of clothes for overweight cats (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA -- movie jobs are funny!),
who consistently is wrongly accused of having anger problems (the
situations he is in are either misunderstandings or over-exaggerations).
Thus, he is unfairly sentenced to endure anger management courses
under the watchful eye of Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson?????).
This is really the only description this film needs. It is nothing
more than that. From here on out, we get unfunny forced situation
after unfunny forced situation as Rydell conducts his "unique"
style of therapy on Buznik. Anger Management really misses
the boat on one significant level: it denies the Buznik character
of having any real anger problems; thus the entire movie is kind
of a waste of time. I'm not sure why they didn't just make Sandler's
character more like Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy with real anger
issues, and allow the therapy to have some sort of actual purpose
to it, other than just a cheap way to team up Nicholson and Sandler
in "box office gold." Quite frankly, I would much rather
have seen a one man showing starring Luis Guzman as his character
here for two hours. Luis Guzman is really funny in just a few
scenes, taking over for the curiously absent Steve Buscemi (who
is always the funniest part of Sandler movies).
And Jack Nicholson? Wow, what a waste.
The movie is so badly made that even the casting coup of Sir Jack
as the wacky Doc is stunningly obnoxious and annoying. God, I
hated this movie. However, I will give some credit to one scene
that worked. Nicholson grabs the parking brake and skids the car
driven by Sandler to a violent stop on a busy bridge, and attempts
to settle him down by demanding he sing "I Feel Pretty"
from West Side Story. The scene starts out horribly; just
one of those kinds of movie scenes that never work. But somehow
it glides on into a somewhat funny and inspired scene. But that's
it. That's worth half a star I guess. Come to think of it, didn't
Robert De Niro also sing "I Feel Pretty" in Analyze
That recently? Maybe it's just time to retire that tune --
it is a bad omen.
And the ending to Anger Management,
oy vey. I know darn well that a movie like this has to end on
an "inspiring" note where all the characters are happy
and all the question marks are erased. I am not even taking issue
with the "wedding proposal" scene at the end (at Yankee
Stadium, with cameos of a suddenly healthy Derek Jeter and spectator
Rudy Giuliani yelling lascivious things…HA HA HA). Had the
film just ended there, it would have only been typical and that
would be understandable. But no, these days, there has to be some
kind of "twist" at the end of every movie, and Anger
Management's tacked on twist is so ridiculous and stupid that
instead of bringing the whole thing to a close with a chuckle,
it instead resembles an homage to David Fincher's The Game
as written by a retard.
I will own up to one thing here. Normally
when I write a review, I post my star rating first, and then attempt
to defend it in the body of the review. In this case I initially
gave Anger Management a one star rating. Then, as I wrote
and relived the wasted two hours I endured, I got angry…and
angrier…and angrier. So for the first time, I have gone back
to the top and taken away a half of a star. Let's just call it
anger management. At any rate, I feel a little better.
But, as always, it is only one man's opinion.
(A Sony Pictures release. Opened in
wide release on April 11, 2003.)
Manage your anger on the message boards.