Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pluskylang Great Film overall

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Paul J. Nemecek I wished that I had learned something about anger management while watching the film by that name. By the end of the film I was almost angry that I had shelled out six dollars on such a terribly bad film. The previews looked like there was some potential here, and I suppose in the basic premise there was some miniscule amount of potential. Alas, the film did not enough live up to the potential hinted at in the previews.Anger Management stars Adam Sandler as someone who spends most of his time expressing the passive side of a passive/aggressive personality. While on an airplane ride his behaviors are misinterpreted as aggressive and he finds himself facing assault charges in criminal court. What starts out as a huge misunderstanding turns into a sentence of anger management therapy.Enter anger management guru, Buddy Rydell, as played by Jack Nicholson. Frankly, the whole idea of Jack Nicholson as an anger management therapist is pretty funny in and of itself. If you've seen Nicholson going ballistic in Five Easy Pieces, bellowing "here's Johnny" in The Shining, snarling "you can't handle the truth" in A Few Good Men, or taking over the asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest you know what I'm talking about. Alas, the idea is funnier than the realization, and in the end Nicholson is a great talented wasted on a mediocre story.There are a few bright spots in the film, the best of which is Marisa Tomei as Adam Sandler's girlfriend. I saw part of My Cousin Vinny again recently, and found myself thinking that she actually deserved the Oscar she got for her role in that film. She is a gifted actress and she lights up the screen in almost every scene she is in here. Unfortunately, those scenes are too few to salvage the uninspired story. John Turturro has a few good scenes as a psychopath and John C. Reilly has a few inspired moments as a backyard-bully turned Buddhist monk. In the end these few inspired scenes make for enough good material for a not-so-terrible episode of a thirty-minute sitcom (allowing 12 minutes for commercials). There are also a few funny cameos of real-life celebs in the movie, but collectively they fill about two minutes of screen time. The rest of the time is filled with prepubescent humor and stale sight gags stretched way too thin to carry the film across the finish line.My advice is to find someone with some editing equipment and splice together your own clips from films by Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler (think Waterboy meets A Few Good Men). You'll have more fun and the end result couldn't possibly be any worse than this.

Floated2 Anger Management starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. Sandler plays Dave Buznik, a 35-year-old, browbeaten executive assistant. Dave takes it all with a smile and gets on with his next humiliation with the good grace born of self-esteem so low that it doesn't even register as a blip on the radar. Until, a fateful plane trip where his self-effacing nature doesn't defuse the situation as exacerbate it. Before he knows it, he's been tasered, arrested, and sentenced to anger management classes with unconventional therapist Buddy Rydell, who just happens to be the eccentric guy who was sitting next to him on the plane. Anger Management tends to be rarely mentioned among Sandler's list of older films and in this film is a great representation of how he was during his best years. He does tend to play very similar characters but he plays (or has) played them well, and his comedic timing and deliver is on par with his better work efforts. The film succeeds because the plot is relatively decent and it works. It also does not try to hard for laughs and silly gags (like Mr. Deeds). A big part of this may be due to the script, it wasn't written by Sandler, though there are one or two fart jokes that have his fingerprints all over them. Overall the film works and it is well enjoyable and entertaining throughout.

Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions) There isn't anything particularly special about this comedy. It has two big stars and was bound to make lots of money because of that, along with the amount of advertisement that wen't into it. The appealing title probably added a few viewers as well. It also, was bound to get a decent amount of hatred from critics for much the same reasons.Adam Sandler's character is a combination of two of his previous roles: Longfellow Deeds, and Happy Gilmore. David Buznik is an overly mild-mannered, like Deeds, and is put in situations that, as the title implies, make him angry. Sandler's rages closely resemble those from Happy Gilmore, and he doesn't have a personal language policy like with Mr. Deeds. Jack Nicholson's character is more than a little quirky and joins the ranks of unconventional teachers. He is very good at making Dave, as well as the audience, uncomfortable and horrified at several points.The comedy doesn't have an overriding amount of originality to it. There are a number of run-of-the-mill slapstick brawls. None of the verbal comedy is terribly witty or intelligent. Basically, the humor allows you to turn your brain off for a while. The PG-13 rating is well deserved, as there are a number of gay gags throughout accompanied by other themes that probably came up at your lunch table in high-school. Despite that, the jokes are well delivered and all of the characters are well acted.There is some cleaner situational comedy too, and most of this comes from the plot, which is the force that really drives this film. If you've watched the trailer or talked to anyone who had seen this movie, you likely have a good idea of the storyline. However, there are also lots of individual situations where the people around Dave overreact, which becomes a prominent theme of the movie. When I saw it for the first time, I was wondering if all of the overreaction was making some kind of statement against social norms of the time, since I was pretty young when the movie came out. I won't reveal the real cause of the overreactions since it would spoil the entire movie.If you get annoyed with the verbal comedy a few minutes into it, it's probably a waste of your time to finish watching. However, if you don't like the plot, I would definitely recommend that you watch the whole thing. It's a movie should be viewed more than once, in much the same way that The Prestige is. It's a pretty typical Adam Sandler movie, so I would recommend it to Sandler fans. You can watch it with a bunch of other people without worrying about missing the plot. It's not something you probably want to spend money on, but it's worth a try if you can watch it for free. Overall Rating: 8/10

Prismark10 A childhood incident with the school bully leaves Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler) with a lasting trauma about public affection, as well as repressing his emotions.He is meek, mild mannered works for an abusive boss, his girlfriend still has a cordial relationship with her ex and Dave takes it all.Whilst on a business flight Dave loses his temper when he sits next to an annoying man called Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), annoys a sky marshall, gets arrested and sentenced to anger management therapy operated by Dr Buddy Rydell who is unorthodox to say the least.It is revealed that Dave's girlfriend and Dr Rydell has set all this up to deal with Dave's emotional issues and release his anger in manageable ways rather than keeping it all zipped in.Its a rather mixed up film especially since Sandler was known for being the angry guy in his early comedy films and here he is rather mild being harassed by Joker Jack who is obnoxious and is the one getting the laughs. You can sympathise why Sandler reaches breaking point and yet ends up in even more trouble.Nicholson seems to be having fun and Sandler bounces off well with him, it seems obvious that Sandler has decided to play second fiddle to Nicholson and let him have the comedy limelight.