Nicholson is Buddy Rydell, an anger management therapist with unusual and even eccentric methods. Adam Sandler is Dave Buznik, who, after a very unrealistic experience on an airliner, is sentenced to Buddy's care.
Buddy then moves into Dave's apartment, and ultimately even into his relationship with his girlfriend, Linda, played by Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei. Buddy joins Dave at the office, and one of the film's undeniable highlights is their duet of "I Feel Pretty," performed in the right hand lane of a suspension bridge.
Sandler makes a go out of being the straight man in this buddy picture, if you'll pardon the obvious pun, but he can't seem to resist mugging to the camera. As to Nicholson, it almost seemed like he was on vacation, unwinding from the acting challenges posed by his last few pictures, notably "The Pledge" and "About Schmidt". I chuckled when Buddy took a swing at an automobile with a baseball bat, a scene lifted right out of the tempestuous actor's private life.
And Marisa Tomei is, again, wonderful in this film as the girlfriend. Tomei is making a great career out of playing "the girl next door" that Sandra Bullock used to typify, and she shines here as she did in the Mel Gibson vehicle "What Women Want".
Celebrities turn out in droves to offer cameo appearances, probably due to Jack's presence. Heather Graham is fun as a gorgeous woman with an inferiority complex; athletes such as Roger Clemens play themselves, Buddy Rydell patients, of course; Rudolph Giuliani turns up for no apparent reason whatsoever.
This is much of the problem with "Anger Management." A great deal of Buddy's shenanigans don't seem to have much basis in reality or, indeed, therapy. They are simply on hand to propel Nicholson and Sandler in and out of one situation out of another. The viewer is left scratching his head and just wondering about what the point really is.
If you're a Jack Nicholson or Adam Sandler fan, as many opening weekend attendees clearly were, nothing I say is going to keep you from this film, and you'll get a few laughs. However, if you're tight with your movie buck... you may want to hang on for home video on this one. After all, "X Men-2" two "Matrix" sequels, "The Hulk" and the nifty looking "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" are opening in the months ahead.
By Bill Wilson
http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/4/180095