Movie Reviews

The year 2002 brought two excellent films with lead roles played by actors going against type. Punch-Drunk Love had Adam Sandler playing an insecure and shy loner, while About Schmidt had Jack Nicholson playing, well, not Jack Nicholson. Such a shame then that the two of these undeniably good actors teamed up to play a couple of annoying morons Anger Management.

Established questionably, early in the film, is that Dave Buznik (Sandler) has an extremely short temper that is threatening his relationship with his girlfriend Linda (played by Marisa Tomei... why, Marisa, why?), as well as his job. After "assaulting" a air-cop on a business flight one day, Dave is sentenced to join an anger management program, in which Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson) is assigned as Dave's personal anger management therapist (Dr. Buddy is the author of a famous book entitled "Know Buddy Loves You").

Buddy spends the entire film setting up Dave in situations that should make any normal person pissed-off angry, and then he himself gets pissed-off as Dave -- understandably -- gets angry. Yeah, it's amusing at first, but it gets old about halfway through the movie (which is at about the same point where we understand that Buddy might simply be trying to split up Dave and Linda so that he can get with her himself (why, Marisa, why?).

Sandler, Nicholson, and Tomei show none of the acting skill that they most certainly possess (see In the Bedroom for Morisa Tomei at her best). Anger Management is a pretty lame comedy with only a few funny parts. It's hopefully the kind of film that these otherwise excellent actors simply decided to do quickly and mindlessly (and for a large paycheque I bet) before moving on to a more worthy project.