MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Anger’ manages to type cast — Grade: D
Let me start off by saying I never have been and never will be an Adam Sandler fan. The only remotely good movie he ever made was “The Wedding Singer,” and that was more for the nostalgia than the acting. I mean face it, anyone can make goofy faces and sing in ridiculous voices. It takes real talent to be an actor.
By now you can probably tell that I think “Anger Management” was a crude bundle of pointless jokes that wasted any potential it may have had first, by casting Sandler, and second, by resorting to crudity over smart humor.
Sandler plays the same character he plays in all of his movies, a stupid, self-loathing oaf who seems to have the world pitted against him. And for that matter, Jack Nicholson (Sandler’s anger therapist) is the same psychotic Jokeresque character he plays in all of his movies. These are what we call actors in a rut. They are typecast for what people expect to see them play.
The only character in the film with any heart was Marisa Tomei as Sandler’s long-suffering girlfriend who only wants to be kissed in public (Sandler’s character has a neurosis about this due to a depanting he received as a kid).
Sandler and Nicholson do play well off each other, and seem to be another of Hollywood’s attempts at finding another Jackie Chan and Chris Rock duo. This fact doesn’t make up for the lame script that delights in size jokes and fat cats. There are only so many times a fat cat in a stupid outfit is even close to being funny.
Is this really what the film industry has fallen to? Where are the witty plays on history inherent in “Shangai Knights?” Where is the unequivocal emotion of “Far From Heaven?” Why has Hollywood decided that their audience is a pack of idiots not capable of anything but dross?
All the really great cinematic experiences have disappeared, and we have been left with the rotting husk of American humor as decrepit and tepid as Nicholson is old and Sandler is stupid. Yet this movie made $44 million on its opening weekend. So maybe Hollywood is on the right track. Maybe all America cares about is crude humor and poor acting. Maybe Sandler is filling some void left in our hearts as our country lost its innocence.
Still I cannot in good faith recommend this movie to the serious film-goer. It may be good for a few laughs, but is a monk with a wedgie really the image you want to leave a movie with? See it if you must, but remember, you won’t get anything lasting out of it.
Jared Sterzer is a senior majoring in business information systems. Comments may be e-mailed to jwsterz@cc.usu.edu.