Anger Management

Anger Management

The idea is inspiring. But the movie sucks. As a matter of fact, “Anger Management”, which could have been Adam Sandler’s best film to date, turned out to be Jack Nicholson’s worst ever made. It’s clear that the picture was concocted as a Sandler vehicle with Nicholson brought in as hired help by virtue of his track record and nose for trash not the other way around (four producers of this turkey were involved in “Master of Disguise” and three with “The Animal”; if you still can’t smell what’s cooking).

Everything about everything that goes wrong with this movie (dumbing-down plot developments, fascination with Sandler’s whiny one note character, celebrity cameos, cringing sentimentality) suggests an assembly line product from Happy Madison Productions and no doubt regular fans will eat it up like candy after last year’s brilliant “Punch Drunk Love”. But Nicholson fans might just want to kill themselves.

Yet there might really have been something here. When I first heard the premise my mouth did curl upwards slightly at each corner: mild-mannered Dave Buznik (Sandler) has just received a promotion at work; he loves his fiancé Linda (Marisa Tomei), who loves him back equally as much if not more so; on a flight home from business trip they experience some odd misunderstandings which result in him being misdiagnosed as having an anger management problem and court ordered into therapy with world-renowned specialist Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson).

Unfortunately for us all, early scenes between these two characters represent Jack’s best because they’re his first and we don’t know how bad things are going to get yet: he wears beard that makes him look like cross between Stanley Kubrick & Lenin while working eyebrows/sardonic grin combo platter (“About Schmidt” production denied him access); introduces our hero to support group led by Luis Guzman and John Turturro (both clearly nuts so is doctor, as Dave finds himself caught up in escalating spiral of trouble that culminates with bar fight & court appearance where he says: “I was being attacked by someone while stealing a blind man’s cane,” played by Harry Dean Stanton); also present are Woody Harrelson (as drag queen who flirts outrageously with Nicholson), Heather Graham [well it wouldn’t be proper without her], former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani [ho-ho] plus many others.

Use of celebrity walk-ons in any film usually signals desperation but rarely does one manage to completely take over movie & drive it into ground at same time like Rudy’s does here; closing scenes set Yankee Stadium when proposal broadcast over loudspeaker have been cliché since before Sandler was born, let alone tired beyond belief after last few years’ worths.

In short: most good comedy has undercurrent truth; genius “Punch Drunk Love” lay in identification/dealing with buried rage that indeed appears evident common denominator most characters portrayed by Adam Sandler. So why then such falseness throughout “Anger Management”? Perhaps because producers felt Dave Buznik wasn’t angry enough they needed him act out more, assert himself (which also conveniently provides an explanation for plot’s “surprise” ending).

I said that Nicholson brings an intrinsic interest to his characters. Sandler doesn’t. His character is usually a blank page, waiting for the movie to write on it. While Nicholson has infinite variations and notes, Sandler is pretty much always the same. The old saying is that a star is supposed to give you the same elements in every movie, and a character actor is supposed to change and surprise.

Nicholson, who has been a star character actor at least since he grinned triumphantly from the back of that motorcycle in “Easy Rider,” was part of a revolution which overthrew the old model stars and brought in new model character stars like Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and recently Nicolas Cage, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi.

Sandler was great in “Punch Drunk Love” because for once he was in a smart movie that got his screen persona; Paul Thomas Anderson studied him, appreciated him, wrote a story for him. Most of Sandler’s other movies have been controlled by himself (he is executive producer this time), and they echo the persona without seeming to see it very clearly especially true in those cloying romantic conclusions where we learn what a sweet guy he really is when you get to know him.

I’m not denying there’s an audience for this stuff. But just suppose suppose! that Dave Buznik really were exploding with rage here, and Dr. Buddy Rydell really were an anger therapist? This movie should be remade immediately, with Jack Nicholson as executive producer this time and Adam Sandler as hired gun.

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