ANGER MANAGEMENT

A docile, sweet-natured guy is judged guilty of being a terroristic hothead and, for his punishment, he is put in the custody of a nutty counselor.

CAST: Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Marisa Tomei, John Turturro, Luis Guzman, Allen Covert, Harry Dean Stanton, Jonathan Loughran,Woody Harrelson, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens, Rudolph Giuliani, Judith Nathan, Bobby Knight, John McEnroe, Robert Merrill

DIRECTOR: Peter Segal

"When an accomplished pro like Jack Nicholson teams up with an incompetent amateur like Adam Sandler, the stench of easy money and fast profits poisons the ozone. If this garbage contained even an iota of wit, it might pass for a parody of how to destroy a movie career…While Mr. Sandler chokes, stammers and knocks himself unconscious trying to come up with more than two facial expressions, Mr. Nicholson—a hairy, smelly, overweight gross-out with enough flatulence for a kidney-bean commercial—steals the show bit by bit. …Embarrassed and clueless, Mr. Nicholson is clearly slumming. As a goopy, doofus pet-clothes designer whose only talent is nostril-wiggling, Mr. Sandler comes closer to playing his real self." --Rex Reed, The New York Observer

"‘Anger Management’ is a perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool…Nicholson is such a dynamic star that the movie actually has some strange power when he's cackling with fiendish laughter or throwing a plate of food against a wall or just smoldering with barely suppressed rage. But he's not funny, he and straight-man Sandler develop zero comic chemistry, and the paranoid premise doesn't have anything close to the kernel of believability that even the wildest farce needs to work…when the movie turns suddenly sappy and goes for a groaningly Capraesque climax involving a self-debasing Rudy Giuliani and the New York Yankees, you just want to run from the theater." -- William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Not only is Jack Nicholson starring in a buddy movie alongside Adam Sandler, but of the two, Sandler's low-key approach is preferable…Sandler is pretty much a one-trick pony, but his one trick is awfully good -- he's adorable when he sings silly songs in a high voice… There is no such thing as character development in this script, so Nicholson just lets 'er rip as an obnoxious, needling, seemingly crazed anger guru. Even Nicholson's hair stands on end more than usual. Everything about the actor is italicized…whatever works about this movie is due to Sandler." --Jami Bernard, The New York Daily News

"Some of the movie is so primitively staged that you can almost hear someone leafing through the book of instructions that came with the camera. Generally, such a lack of smoothness translates into a barroom-brawl energy that can keep a high-concept, no-brow picture cracking, but this doesn't happen here." --Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

"Like many of Sandler's films, it's a collection of inspired moments set amid juvenile penis-and-fart jokes, pointless cameos, and a schmaltzy ending you can see coming at least half an hour away. But at the same time, it's great fun watching Nicholson, after subdued turns in ‘The Pledge’ and ‘About Schmidt,’ hamming up a storm as Buddy Rydell, a certifiably mad shrink…‘Anger Management’ is a ragged piece of filmmaking, but the odds are you'll have as good a time watching it as Nicholson and Sandler seemed to have making it." --Lou Lumenick, The New York Post

"A film that might have been one of Adam Sandler's best, becomes one of Jack Nicholson's worst…Everything about the way the movie goes wrong--the dumbing-down of plot developments, the fascination with Sandler's whiny one-note character, the celebrity cameos, the cringing sentimentality--indicates a product from the Sandler assembly line. No doubt Sandler's regular fans will love this movie, which is a return to form after the brilliant ‘Punch Drunk Love.’ Nicholson's fans will be appalled." --Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

"The deal on ‘Anger Management’ must have gone something like this: OK, Adam Sandler gets to steal top billing. But Jack Nicholson gets to steal the rest of the movie… Nicholson, having put his ebbing youth on the line via the sofa-like protagonist of ‘About Schmidt,’ is implying here -- quite insistently -- that he hasn't lost his edge. And he hasn't. ‘Anger Management’ may be a crazy movie, wildly uneven and possessed by an often overeagerness to be wild and crazy… Occasionally, however, it is hilarious." --John Anderson, Newsday

"Though what he does here pretty much defines coasting, Nicholson just fooling around adds an energy to even the kind of hopelessly contrived material that lets you know that the lowest common denominator just got lower…Though ‘Anger Management’ does have some amusing moments, it's too undiscriminating and scattershot to be worth paying attention to." --Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

"… a movie with a plot so flimsy and laughs so scattered it should send all concerned toward Career Guidance…Nicholson resembles nothing more than an acting coach urging Sandler to feel his anger. Sadly, after his groundbreaking stretch in ‘Punch-Drunk Love,’ a movie that homed in on the volatility of the Sandler persona's bottled-up sweetness, Sandler does seem to need an acting coach." --Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun

"After being nominated for the most restrained performance of his career in ‘About Schmidt,’ Jack is back in all his eyebrow-raising, over-the-top, scene-chewing glory...While ‘Anger Management’ certainly manages a few good laughs and fits the bill as a harmless early Spring moviegoing diversion, sloppy contrivances, lame jokes and an uninspired ending keep the film from being...well, as good as it gets." --Scott Mantz, The Christian Science Monitor