Issue date: 4/18/03 Section: The Verge

"Anger Management" is a movie I should have known better about. Adam Sandler, when under the creative control of a talented director like Paul Thomas Anderson, can be interesting. But when Sandler produces the film with his buddies, under his company Happy Madison, the movie will probably be a painful to watch. Unfortunately, "Anger Management" was a Happy Madison film and does not work on any level, thereby wasting the talent of Jack Nicholson.

"Anger Management" is very much like Sandler's latest film "Punch Drunk Love" if you would take out the artistic merit of the latter and replace it with transvestite jokes and lesbians kissing. Once again, Sandler plays a mild-mannered man named Dave Buznik who is over-filled with rage but does not know how to express it. Buznik, after a misunderstanding on a plane, is sent to anger management class where he is under the constant supervision of Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) and his "unorthodox practices."

I admit when I first heard about Nicholson and Sandler teaming up, I was very curious and when I saw the preview and it made me laugh out loud. This was one movie I was looking forward to seeing more than any other film in the beginning of the year and was sorely disappointed with the final product. While not an ardent Sandler basher, I have grown tired of his movies because they have an exhausted feel to them of late.

The common thinking used to be that Sandler himself was to blame for the films, but after "Punch Drunk Love" Sandler proved he can be an interesting actor to watch. In "Anger Management," Sandler was not his normal self, acting dumb and using a grating voice that gets on the nerve of even the most patient person, but was the straight man to the craziness around him.

Jack Nicholson is the best thing the movie had going for it because he gave the movie energy that was severely lacking in scenes he was not in. Nicholson, arching one of his eyebrows or doing one of his trademark laughs was funnier than 90 percent of what the writers of "Anger Management" ever came up with. John Turturro, who was the only funny thing in "Mr. Deeds," is wasted in this film as is Luis Guzman. While wasting talented actors in bad films is nothing new, when a movie wastes all the present talent it should be a crime.

The blame must not be placed on the stars of this movie, because they did what they could with the material they were given. The blame must lie with the creators of the film. The stars and concept of the film could have easily made this a very entertaining movie with minimal work to be done, but the writers, producers and directors of the film decided to do nothing original or funny with what they were given.

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