Anger Management (2002)

Anger Management (2002)

 3/10

 

Starring

Adam Sandler

Jack Nicholson

Marisa Tomei

 

Directed by Peter Segal

 

Anger Management was a movie I saw way back then, and I never recall seeing it again after watching it just once. I remember many of the things that happened in it, especially the incident at the ending and how it was all set to make Dave (Adam Sandler) a better person, to stand up for himself, and not hold everything in, but that was it for me.

Seeing the movie again in 2022, I can say this is a very boring, unfunny movie that made less sense than it tried to. The whole idea could have been done better if they made Buddy (Jack Nicholson) normal. I even think the movie would have been funnier if everyone around Dave acted normally. The over-exaggeration of characters and the portrayal of Buddy as a man who uses unorthodox methods to treat his patients would have made more sense if it was toned down a lot—not a little, but a lot.

There’s no celebration to be had for the story or the acting. Everything about this movie comes across like one of those bad Hallmark movies you’re forced to watch because you have a guest who’s easily entertained by ridiculousness.

The movie starts with a pushover named Dave who is in a great relationship with Linda (Marisa Tomei). He was on a work trip when things got out of hand quickly. First, his seat was taken, and he had to find another one, which led him to sit next to Buddy. While seated, Buddy kept disturbing him during the flight with his laughing and later asking Dave to join him in watching the in-flight movie. Dave asked the flight attendant for headphones, and she overreacted, which led to Dave getting sentenced to 20 hours of anger management.

Dave thought he could get out of it, but in the one session he attended, we see him snap at the doctor, who by a weird coincidence happens to be his seat partner, Buddy. He refused to let Dave off easy, so Dave had to finish the class. He gets assigned an "anger buddy," someone he could call when things got out of hand, which landed Dave in more trouble, and he could face jail time if he doesn’t get his anger issues under control.

The movie failed to make me care about Dave, who I believe, if I were in his shoes, would have attempted to kill Buddy earlier than he did.

Very unrealistic, boring, and not funny. This is a movie I wish I had left in the cage of my mind when I saw it back then and couldn’t recall what happened.