Anger Management

Directed by Peter Segal, Anger Management follows Adam Sandler’s Dave Buznik as he’s sentenced to a month with Jack Nicholson’s Dr. Buddy Rydell after an incident aboard an airplane. Filmmaker Segal, armed with David Dorfman’s screenplay, delivers an erratic yet mostly agreeable comedy that benefits from the terrific efforts of its two stars, as Sandler and especially Nicholson turn in larger-than-life work that goes a long way towards smoothing over the hit-and-miss narrative’s bumps and lulls – with this vibe perpetuated by a roster of such top-notch periphery players as Marisa Tomei, John Turturro, and Woody Harrelson. (John C. Reilly’s one-scene appearance as a bully-turned-monk is an obvious highlight, ultimately.) And although the picture is rarely as laugh-out-loud funny as one might’ve anticipated based on the foolproof premise, with the proliferation of questionable comedic asides and digressions perpetuating this feel, Anger Management boasts an amiable, easygoing atmosphere that ultimately carries it through to its satisfying (albeit wildly over the top) conclusion – with the end result a decent-enough Sandler vehicle that lands somewhere in the middle of his thoroughly uneven filmography.

**1/2 out of ****