Sophisticated 'Anger Management' knocks out plenty of laughs

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

ANGER MANAGEMENT (PG-13) Three Stars (Good) An amusing comedy with Adam Sandler as a timid fellow who finds himself the unlikely patient of a psychiatrist (Jack Nicholson) who specializes in anger management. Marisa Tomei, Luis Guzman, John Turturro and the late Lynne Thigpen co-star for director Peter Segal. Columbia, 100 mins.

So says Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), Manhattan's anger-management guru, dispatched to calm down a reportedly out-of-control Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler).

But, there's a twist: Dave Buznik is not now, nor has he ever really been, out of control. If anything, he's way too docile for his own good.

He doesn't have enough self-confidence to even be out of control. If anything, Dave needs to have his anger jump-started.

That's the situation in "Anger Management," the funny new comedy that offers the wonderfully wacky teaming of Nicholson at his most devilish and Sandler at his most timid.

In fact, Dave Buznik actually seems like Sandler's character plucked out of the more esoteric and Zenlike "Punch-Drunk Love" and put into the sort of popcorn silliness that'll get a lot of laughs from Sandler's longtime fans.

Yet "Anger Management" has enough sophistication and first-class performances to also entertain more demanding viewers.

Buznik is the much-abused executive assistant to a self-centered marketing kingpin. He somehow has attracted a bright and beautiful girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) but is too shy to even kiss her in public. He risks losing her to the far more aggressive men who are attracted to her like bees to honey.

As the film opens, Buznik is innocently involved in an incident on an airplane that escalates into his being arrested for abusing a flight attendant.

The judge (played by the late Lynne Thigpen) orders him into anger management sessions with the mysterious, highly regarded Dr. Rydell. And Rydell decides drastic steps are required — he must move in with Buznik so he can monitor his every emotional turn.

Buznik's omnipresent new friend, of course, is a royal pain, causes all sorts of havoc with the young man's work, his relationship with his girlfriend and much more.

In fact, the tension goes on too long and the film sags a bit at the two-third's mark. Just when you can't imagine how it'll all end, director Peter Segal and writer David Dorfman come up with an elaborate, unlikely, but undeniably amusing conclusion.

"Anger Management" owes much of its success to a first-rate cast, especially a hyper-angry John Turturro and a rough-hewn but effeminate Luis Guzman as two of Dr. Rydell's most colorful patients.

But it's the especially playful Nicholson and the restrained, low-key Sandler that put the kick in "Anger Management." Nicholson's Rydell offers a zany contrast to the actor's well grounded but beautifully befuddled Schmidt. Sandler continues to demonstrate a skill at quietly vulnerable characters that are far more appealing — and amusing — than his earlier menagerie of wacked-out losers.

Rated PG-13, with profanity and innuendo.