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04/14/03

1 hr. 40 mins.
Starring: Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Marisa Tomei, Luis Guzman, Lynne Thigpen, John Turturro, Woody Harrelson, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly
Directed by: Peter Segal

Rating: ** stars (out of 4 stars)

If anyone deserves to enroll in anger management classes, one would think that playwright Neil Simon would be at the head of the line. After all, I’d get “medieval on someone’s buttocks” if someone tried to artistically tamper with my beloved creation (The Odd Couple) and disguise it as an updated yet robust scattershot comedy gussied up with notable lead box office stars and other celebrated quirky cameos. In director Peter Segal’s Odd cut-up comedy Anger Management, the creative rip-off is quite evident. Although this supposedly madcap movie has its intermittent amusing moments, the slight high jinks within the material borders on the cusp of being relentlessly repetitive and drags on mercilessly like an insufferable sitcom with an annoying canned laugh track.

It’s kind of curious to wonder what original thought process went into teaming up a pair of extremely popular bad boys in the likes of the profitable short-fuse fratboy Adam Sandler and the unctuous and smooth rambunctious tics of the legendary Jack Nicholson? Was it an instantaneous and built-in exploitive concept to capitalize on the well known edgy on-screen personas of the pesky film stars or was it a lucky dose of easy dollar-sign irony instead? Sandler, who made his prosperous bread and butter by ushering onto the screen an array of one-dimensional excitable punk-like pinheads in slaphappy fare such as Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy, seems inexplicably subdued in Anger and merely goes through the familiar motions of playing an uptight and volatile victim of circumstances. Nicholson, however, is meant to add salt to his proverbial wound as the knee-slapping unintentional instigator whose oily presence simply exacerbates the rising turmoil. Hmmm…where are Felix Unger and Oscar Madison when you really need them, huh?

Meet thirtysomething Dave Buznik (Sandler), a working stiff stuck in a menial job for a company that produces fashion outfits for out-of-shape cats and dogs. In addition to his mundane work-related tasks being as rewarding as reading the dictionary backwards, Buznik has to endure the insufferable personality traits of his demanding and demeaning boss. So in a nutshell, we already have as evidence an unsteady individual whose soon-to-be turned upside down world is almost an excusable and sympathetic foregone conclusion based on the lackey-based status he lives so painfully in his ho hum existence.

One day, Buznik’s laconic behavior is tested on a flight to New York when he confronts a snappy and paranoid flight attendant (Nancy Walls) while innocently asking for a pair of headphones. Before anyone can utter the word hijack, poor Buznik is subjected to the humiliation of being mistaken for an unruly sky terrorist and is soon unfairly apprehended by the airline authorities. Taking in all this misleading commotion on this same flight is trendy new wave celebrity headshrink Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson), Buznik’s travel seatmate. Little does Dave Buznik realize is that the constant company of Dr. Buddy Rydell will permanently figure into his livelihood more than he cares to imagine.

Based on his current entanglement with the whole messy airline episode, Buznik is ordered to stand before no nonsense Judge Daniels (Lynne Thigpen) in her intimidating court. Predictably, the sentencing is not favorable to Buznik as he’s charged with the count of severe air rage. As a result, the seething sap must undergo anger management classes to control his temper tantrums. And guess who will be running these very same classes to boot? Why it’s none other than the gray goatee-faced and beret-wearing Dr. Buddy! And guess what, the good ole doc happens to be an old acquaintance of the honorable Judge Daniels! Gee…how convenient, right? Isn’t this originally grand how the scheme of this whole predicament worked out?

It’s not long before we’re taken into the neurotic universe of Dr. Buddy and his band of kooky characters that make up his freakish therapeutic session group. Subsequently, the movie dutifully dives into the nonsensical and stereotypical goings-on of its insulting cartoonish participants. Thus we are exposed to the fragrant sight gags and rituals of Rydell’s offensive stable of patients that include flamboyantly gay loudmouth Latino Lou (Luiz Guzman) as well as other laughable lunatics that forcibly lend some outrageousness in an effort to step up the lazy-minded hilarity.

At first, Buznik wasn’t thrilled with the crazed company he was forced to keep during his emotional rehabilitation but much like mold on rotted cheese, this cockeyed crew of misfits grew on him. In fact, Buznik comes to the defense of one of his periled group members during an obligatory bar room confrontation and inadvertently punches a blind man based on this heroic gesture. Of course this means facing the blustery Judge Daniels once again and being threatened with jail time for violating the terms of his raging urges. So to avoid the possibility of cozying up to an uncomfortable jail cell, Buznik must do the next best thing-accept the bothersome Dr. Buddy as his newly court-appointed roommate with the anticipation that the flighty shrink will keep an eye on him and monitor his progress on a personalized domestic level.

The prospect of the intrusive Dr. Buddy stepping over the tender toes of Buznik while he tries to exist in his humble home front has its occasional chuckles but for the most part the conflict is decidedly contrived. After a while, the gimmick of Dr. Buddy’s irksome interference plays itself out in exhaustive fashion and you find yourself struggling to contemplate what other concocted direction the plodding script will take us in. Case in point, we are introduced to Dave Buznik’s romantic interest Linda (Marisa Tomei) and it doesn’t take an astute sociology graduate student to figure out what shenanigans Dr. Buddy will come up with to taint the loving relationship while performing his service to his client and newfound pal. Alas, we get the in-joke-is it the wacky practice of therapist Buddy Rydell that should be in the hysterical hot seat with his apparent dippy mental malaise while Dave Buznik in reality is the actual sane one and true overseer of practicality?

Anger Management is a deadening ball of confusion. With the frivolous hammered together direction of Segal (The Nutty Professor II) and writer David Dorfman’s overactive and disjointed screenplay, this half-hearted farce never captures anything remotely imaginative as the caustic comedy it wants to portray. In a vain attempt to inject this choppy laugher with some needed gusto, the filmmakers overstuff this silly-minded vehicle with an assortment of suggestive and weird nuances. Whether parading around the sumptuous Heather Graham as a barmaid bimbo with pronounced uncertainties or witnessing the pseudo-shock value revelation of seeing Woody Harrelson prance around as a German transvestite with the tendency to turn tricks, it’s clear that Segal’s uneven narrative is overreaching for something that isn’t there-a sense of genuine subversive humor. Not even the insistence of fortifying this peerless patchwork with New York-based icons such as highly revered ex-Big Apple mayor Rudy Giuliani and future Hall of Famer Yankee baseball hurler Roger Clemens can stimulate this cluttered comedic display.

As for the film’s stars, both Sandler and Nicholson strangely enough don’t seize the opportunity to exaggerate their bombastic big screen reputations and turn their Anger antics into something of a high-caliber campy mode. The mindless arrogance of their performances suggests that the audience should automatically accept the anemic slapstick at face value because after all-it does feature the fearless funnybone capabilities of the treasured tandem with the assured fanatical following! While the moviemakers were clever in hoping that the ticklish tag team of Sandler and Nicholson would stimulate the myopic proceedings thus allowing their leads to coast on their frothy cinematic clout, Anger Management would have probably been yet another faceless romp had it starred a lesser known duo in trying to bring this absurd dud into prominence.

The strikingly superficial Anger Management is too callow to warrant anyone getting an enjoyable hissy fit over. Enduring the pointless process of Nicholson giddily trying to tap into Sandler’s underlying angst could have been somewhat of an intriguing and enticing hoot involving two loose cannons from different generations of sardonic cinema. Instead, this shoddy showcase has all the trivial frustration of a brat holding his breath because his parents told him to clean his filthy bedroom.