MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Anger’ manages to type cast — Grade: C-
Maybe the people who saw the latest Adam Sandler/Jack Nicholson flick are the ones who need to seek anger management classes after shelling out $6 to see this over-conceived hack-job of a movie.
“Anger Management” offers nothing new to the movie industry, and I do mean nothing. A story that had potential and then failed to even get off the ground an inch or two should have been the first clue that this was the perfect candidate for being shelved deep within the studio’s warehouse of abandoned films.
But even more than that was the tired and oh so familiar rhetoric disguised as acting . Sandler has played this “lovable” but “screwed up” dope so many times that he should hold the copyright on the character. He has said he wants to show audiences that he has range and depth, but pulling out one more of these simple hat-trick rip-offs is not going to earn him any stripes.
And then there was Nicholson. How many times does he get to play crazy and get paid for it? Can anyone say “welcome back Joker?” He is in-your-face and over the top. And of course he does it with the same signature toothy grin and raised eyebrows that he uses in EVERY movie he makes. This performance was like watching every other Nicholson film in less than two hours. Yippee.
So where did the movie take it’s first wrong turn? The whole premise is a good place to start. A man who has a slight misunderstanding on an airplane is sentenced to anger management classes to help him control his emotions.
OK, so far I can buy into it.
He meets the good doctor who turns out to be the crazy one in the match-up.
Even better. A good idea to put a mild-mannered man with a crazy who is supposed to help said mild man control his anger which is really nonexistent.
Bad jokes, bad scripting and bad acting cannot be overlooked by anyone. Even if there were some funny moments.
The best part of the show really came from the celebrity cameos – and what a wide range there was. Football coach Bobby Knight, John McEnroe, Robert Merrill and Heather Graham all play small but interesting parts … patients of the good doctor. Why could we not have seen more of them?
Well almost. He is rivaled by Galaxia. A cross-dressing hooker with a long, blond wig and an equally bad German lisp comes into the film’s cub-story so easily. But this is as short lived as the mini skirt. Now for the reason this was such a brilliant choice, Woody Harrelson in drag. Now that is funny.
All in all, I would not waste my time on this film again. Next time, maybe Hollywood shouldn’t reply so heavily on star power and actually write a good movie.
Justin Berry is a local actor turned movie critic. Comments can be sent to Justinsb26@hotmail.com.