Anger Management Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)April 16th, 2003
IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
ANGER MANAGEMENT
Directed by Peter Segal
Rated PG-13, 101 minutes
"Anger Management" is "Punch Drunk Love" without the punch. The last time he passed before the cameras, Adam Sandler had the good sense to retain the brilliant young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Boogie Nights","Magnolia") to shape his outburst-prone dimwit persona into a real character. But apparently Sandler was only slumming up. "Punch Drunk Love", it seems, was his version of a night out with the grown-ups, just to show us he could do it if he wanted to. He could, and he did, and it was a revelation. But it turns out he's happier hanging out with the other kids.
The big kid in this project is Jack Nicholson, who plays Dr. Buddy Rydell, an anger therapist to whose care Sandler's character is assigned following a scene on an airplane that spirals unconvincingly out of hand. Sandler plays Dave Buznik, a milquetoast ad exec who handles a line of fashions for plus-sized cats. He has, for no good reason that we can see, a lovely and adorable girlfriend named Linda, played by a gal who has those qualities in spades, Marisa Tomei. He also has a miniscule ego, less self-confidence, a barely discernable temper, and an even smaller penis.
Dave is the last guy in the world who needs anger management therapy. That's the gag here. But after the airplane misunderstanding, he winds up in court (haplessly defended by Kevin Nealon), and is remanded to the therapeutic mercies of Buddy by the presiding judge (the lovely Lynne Thigpen, who just passed away.) He has to attend Buddy's group therapy sessions, where he encounters such real life hot-heads as basketball coach Bobby Knight and tennis bad boy John McEnroe. Fortunately for the movie, there are some pretty entertaining fellow patients in the group - Luis Guzman as a Little Richard-ish Latino, John Turturro as a former Marine with post-traumatic stress from the Granada invasion, plus a couple of lesbian porn star lovers who have jealousy issues. Turturro is assigned to be Dave's "anger ally", which leads to a scene, which leads to another day in court for Dave, which leads to Buddy deciding that the only way to get a handle on Dave's temper problem is to move in with him.
Buddy, of course, is a real nut case, played by Nicholson with his stock-in-trade over-the-top wicked zest. When Dave has only one bed, Buddy blithely hops in it with him. The gag here (I'm not giving anything away, it's in the trailer) is that Buddy sleeps in the nude. But he doesn't strip to the buff and get in bed; instead he slips between the sheets in his T-shirt and BVDs, and then coyly removes them like a virgin on her wedding night, a move calculated not for character but for MPAA rating points. And then he farts. And then he flings an arm across Dave in a somnolent embrace. The fun just keeps on coming.
Sandler movies tend to be cameo-fests - probably just to show that he commands that kind of clout. In addition to the above named, we get visits from Heather Graham, Rudy Giuliani, Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens (an anger management candidate himself), Woody Harrelson, and John C. Reilly, who is probably there just to keep alive his streak of being in every movie made over the past two years. The problem with all these cameos is that when ordinary nameless character actors appear in small roles you wonder what went wrong - couldn't they get Ben Stiller?
Gradually, as the story rolls along, Dave rouses himself from his diffidence and begins to show flashes of real anger. This is a good thing, the sort of progress that led the Quaker bride Grace Kelly to put a bullet through the head of a baddie in "High Noon", or John Wayne to return to fisticuffs in "The Quiet Man". When Buddy starts making moves on Linda, Dave gets mad as hell, and he's not going to take it any more. Earlier we've established that Dave is such a tangle of insecurities that he won't kiss Linda in public; now he must make his way to Yankee Stadium, and make a declaration of love in front of 60,000 Yankee fans, including that icon, rabid Yankee fan, and terrible actor, former Mayor Giuliani himself.
The main problem with "Anger Management" is that too few of the jokes are legitimately set up. As developed by director Peter Segal (whose highlight reel is topped by "Nutty Professor II"), newcomer screenwriter David Dorfman, and producer Sandler, the jokes are deemed to be funny enough not to need development. People find all sorts of things funny. A lot of people find Adam Sandler's movies hysterical, which is why he's the highest paid movie comedian since Jim Carrey. These fans will be happy to know that he's returned to form.
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