Anger Management

Release year: 2003
My Rating: ★★★ out of 5

Tagline: Feel the love.

Synopsis: After a small misunderstanding aboard an airplane escalates out of control, timid businessman Dave Buznik is ordered by the court to undergo anger management therapy at the hands of specialist Dr. Buddy Rydell. But when Buddy steps up his aggressive treatment by moving in, Dave goes from mild to wild as the unorthodox treatment wreaks havoc with his life.

Outside of Mr. Deeds, I feel like the early 2000s has been Adam Sandler's time to just get kinda weird with what he makes. I mean you start out with Little Nicky, then Punch-Drunk Love, and Eight Crazy Nights. Then you get to Anger Management, not necessarily weird on paper, but a much stranger movie than it first appears.

Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson are such an interesting pair. You have one of the most acclaimed and best actors of all time and all he does the whole movie is just pester Sandler. I don't know how these two managed to come together to make a movie. It just doesn't really make sense.

I feel like there's so much working against itself in this movie. It's probably the funniest and most entertaining movie Sandler has made since Little Nicky, but I don't know if I can like it that much. It's a movie where you just feel bad for the main character because he just gets his buttons pushed over and over again until he eventually snaps. And then when he does he's the bad guy. This movie also has a crazy twist ending that I don't know if it makes me like or dislike the movie more. I definitely feel something.

I think the weirdest thing about this movie is a certain cameo. So this is an Adam Sandler movie set in New York in 2003, which means it was made almost entirely after 9/11. And with that comes a cameo from none other than America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. I know this almost certainly wasn't weird at the time, but after the election fraud, disbarment, Four Seasons Construction company, and dripping hair dye of it all, it is interesting to see just how much everyone loved this guy. He shows up in the climax just basically to say the Rob Schneider "You can do it!" line and that's it, but man, how the mighty have fallen.

Outside of all that, I do feel like this is a pretty middling movie. Not the worst, not the best. It's in the middle of my ranking. I didn't really even think about since until writing this post so, I suppose there you have it.