Anger Management (2003)

"Sandler ropes a whole new constellation of stars...  J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
"Adam Sandler fans, rejoice!  James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"...laugh-out-loud moments...  Peter Bradshaw, Guardian Unlimited
"Each actor is unusually watchful and wily, and their actorly competition underscores the one-upmanship of their characters.  Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
"At a time when screen comedy has its own problems with anger management, Sandler's self-possessed style is as refreshing as it is funny.  David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
"Miller time for the funny bone.  Desson Thomson, The Washington Post
"...a comedy as bracing and furiously right for the moment as it is broad and huggable.  Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"...leave it to Sandler and Nicholson to make this movie worth more than the price of admission.  Phil Villarreal, AZ Daily Star

Editor's Note ANGER MANAGEMENT, directed by Peter Segal, looks into the life of Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler), an executive assistant at a pet clothing company. The mild-mannered but overly passive Dave is in love with his girlfriend, Linda (Marisa Tomei), yet his anxious personality keeps him from taking things further, both in their relationship and in his career. However, Dave's life takes a strange turn when he is wrongly accused of "air rage" on a flight and sentenced to mandatory anger management classes. Eccentric anger guru Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) becomes Dave's therapist, but when Buddy abruptly moves in with Dave, the doctor-patient relationship takes an unusual turn. An appropriate pairing of actors with oversized personalities, ANGER MANAGEMENT allows Nicholson to run amuck, while letting Sandler hone the mellower side of his cinematic presence. As Sandler's Dave becomes more bewildered at his predicament, Nicholson's Buddy teeters wildly between wise and rambunctious. Meanwhile, Tomei (who apparently gets more attractive as she gets older) shines in her role as Dave's beloved. Of course, no mainstream Sandler movie would be complete without a number of familiar faces in supporting and cameo roles, and ANGER has them by the boatload. John Turturro steals every scene he's in; Luiz Guzman sports some remarkably unfortunate facial hair; Heather Graham shows up as a brownie-hurling blonde bombshell; and John C. Reilly appears as a bully-turned-Buddhist-monk. And to top it all off, there are cameos by renowned "angry" sports figures Bobby Knight and John McEnroe, as well as the esteemed former mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani.

	John Turturro
	Luis Guzman
	Marisa Tomei
	Jack Nicholson
	Woody Harrelson
	Adam Sandler
	Allen Covert
	January Jones
	Kevin Nealon
	Krista Allen
	Donald McAlpine - Cinematographer
	Peter Segal - Director
	Jeff Gourson - Editor
	Todd Garner - Executive Producer
	Teddy Castellucci - Musical Score
	Barry Bernardi - Producer
	Alan Au - Production Designer
	David Dorfman - Writer
	Adam Sandler - Executive Producer
	David Dorfman - Writer
	Derek Jeter - Featuring
	Domenic Silvestri - Art Director
	Jeffrey D. McDonald - Art Director
	Roger Clemens - Featuring
	Teddy Castellucci - Original Music By

New York Times
"...Mr. Sandler, who has developed a skill for playing weary sanity, has also polished his ability for underplaying surprise..." 04/11/2003 p.E1

USA Today
"...The teaming still works..." 04/11/2003 p.1E

Entertainment Weekly
"...What Sandler and Dorfman employ best is New York-style absurdity?.And Sandler and company also wrangle a hip list of cameo players..." 04/18/2003 p.44-5

Rolling Stone
"...You smile just thinking about Adam Sandler as a schlub forced to take anger-management classes from a rageaholic shrink....Lock up the kids and grandma, this is Jack unleashed..." 05/01/2003 p.63

Variety
"...Sandler and Nicholson are back in the big pond this time doing what comes naturally..." 04/14/2003 p.19-22

Sight and Sound
"...There are lively contributions from Buddy's dysfunctional patients..." 07/01/2003 p.36

Uncut
"[C]uriously enjoyable and often funny." 12/01/2003 p.160

L.A. Times 4 of 10
Ever dread a dental appointment that didn't turn out to be as painful as anticipated? "Gee," you say when the drilling stops, "that could have been worse." And so it is with the haphazard Jack Nicholson-Adam Sandler vehicle, Anger Management. - Kenneth Turan

Chicago Sun-Times 6 of 10
The concept is inspired. The execution is lame. "Anger Management," a film that might have been one of Adam Sandler's best, becomes one of Jack Nicholson's worst. Because Nicholson has a superb track record and a sure nose for trash, it's obvious the movie was a Sandler project with Nicholson as hired talent, not the other way around. The fact that four of the producers were involved in "Master of Disguise" and three with "The Animal" indicates that quality-control was not an issue...Everything about the way the movie goes wrong--the dumbing-down of plot developments, the fascination with Sandler's whiny one-note character, the celebrity cameos, the cringing sentimentality--indicates a product from the Sandler assembly line. No doubt Sandler's regular fans will love this movie, which is a return to form after the brilliant "Punch Drunk Love." Nicholson's fans will be appalled...That there is a market for this I do not deny. But imagine, just imagine, a movie in which Dave Buznik truly was exploding with rage, and Dr. Buddy Rydell really was an anger therapist. This movie should be remade immediately, this time with Jack Nicholson as executive producer, and Adam Sandler as hired gun. - Roger Ebert

ReelViews 7 of 10
Adam Sandler fans, rejoice! Your favorite comic actor has returned to the form that made him a box office success. After a trio of offbeat choices that alienated significant portions of his target audience (the Mr. Deeds remake, Paul Thomas Anderson's quirky Punch Drunk Love, and the animated 8 Crazy Nights), Sandler has offered his loyalists a belated Valentine in the form of Anger Management. This new comedy has all the requisite elements we have come to expect from Sandler pictures: flatulence, big dick jokes, assorted forms of vulgarity, and cartoon violence. The only thing that's missing is the trademark Sandler obnoxiousness (he plays a fairly mild-mannered individual). But we have Jack Nicholson for that...I suspect that Anger Management might have been a funnier film if the movie hadn't been forced to contain a throw-away romantic subplot (with a criminally underused Marisa Tomei in the girlfriend role) and a cringe-worthy "moral." The more consistently amusing a movie is, the easier it is to overlook such flaws. The sporadic nature of Anger Management's laugh-inducing material makes it the kind of outing that's better suited for home video watching than a trip to theaters. Except, of course, for Adam Sandler fans, who will get exactly what they expect. - James Berardinelli