director
Peter Segal
screenwriter
David Dorfman
producers
Jack Giarraputo
Barry Bernardi
cinematographer
Donald McAlpine
music
Teddy Castellucci
editor
Jeff Gourson
cast
Adam Sandler (Dave Buznik)
Jack Nicholson (Dr. Buddy Rydell)
Marisa Tomei (Linda)
Luis Guzman (Lou)
Allen Covert (Andrew)
Lynne Thigpen (Judge Daniels)
John Turturro (Chuck)
Heather Graham (Kendra)
Krista Allen (Staci)
January Jones (Gina)
Woody Harrelson (Galaxia)
John C. Reilly (Arnie Shankman)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 101m
u.s.
release: 4/11/03
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
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Jack Nicholson as Adam Sandler's
therapist -- what a coup for Sony's marketing division. The concept
sells itself, and very likely has bought itself a number-one
opening weekend by the time you read this.*
Anger Management looks like a comedy classic in its trailer,
but the trailer is only about three minutes long. That's about
how long it takes for the movie itself to make you say, "Okay,
we get it. Fun concept. Are you going to do anything interesting
with it?" Sadly, no.
Some say that rage fuels comedy,
and Adam Sandler has built his castle on his passive-aggressive
persona (emphasis on aggressive). He specializes in the
sad-sack regular guy with reserves of fury, which eventually
bursts out and, more often than not, works to his benefit (as
in his sports movies Happy Gilmore and The
Waterboy). Many scenes in Sandler's films are just marking
time until the moment where he loses it. (For his other trick,
he has a Gen-X shrug in response to things that baffle him, as
in his many "O-kaaaay, psycho man" asides to
Nicholson here.) In Anger Management, though, Sandler
is cast too snugly in the role of executive whipping boy Dave
Buznik, who devised the idea of clothes for rotund cats and privately
seethes with resentment that his boss took credit for his brainstorm.
This sort of plot worked better when Sandler was an underdog
slob, not a stressed-out company man.
Nicholson, as radical therapist
Dr. Buddy Rydell, swoops into the picture on fiery Balrog wings
and gleefully torments Dave, hoping to free up some of Dave's
repressed anger and then teach him how to process it more fruitfully.
Most of the ensuing hijinks, you've seen in the trailer; this
is one movie whose premise was solid enough, marketing-wise,
that it could've gotten by with a short teaser trailer that didn't
spoil almost every joke in the movie. Nicholson, too, isn't exactly
cast against type here. Once you've understood the dynamic between
befuddled Dave and wacky Dr. Buddy -- and it takes no great insight
to do so -- you've understood pretty much everything to follow.
Sandler's movies do tend to
attract appreciative buddies, making the films play at times
like half-organized parties. John Turturro shows up as one of
the loose cannons in Dave's anger-management support group and
gets most of the honest laughs in the movie. Krista Allen and
January Jones are amusing as lesbian porn stars, whose presence
in a restaurant leads to the film's best throwaway gag. Woody
Harrelson drops by as a German she-male hooker named Galaxia
-- no, you're not on drugs; you did indeed just read that sentence.
There are the usual cameos, including a New York celebrity who
gets to deliver Rob Schneider's "You can do eet!" bit
seen in various Sandler films.
Do we really need a fable about
corporate guys getting in touch with their inner brats? Adam
Sandler, who turns 37 this year, is getting a little old for
roughhousing with Buddhist monks and jokes about penis size.
Punch-Drunk Love was
supposed to steer him toward a more mature packaging of his persona,
but failed because Paul Thomas Anderson believed there was nothing
wrong with Sandler's character that the right woman couldn't
fix. Anger Management arrives at the same disheartening
(and dubious) conclusion, adding Jack Nicholson for good measure.
As structured, the movie is a narcissist's dream: everyone --
literally, the entire crowd at Yankee Stadium -- rises up and
gives Dave props for defeating a (silly) childhood demon. Anger
Management is a movie for those who think they deserve applause
for not being assholes.
* It did, grossing a record (for April)
$44.5 million on opening weekend.
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