Anger Management

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Anger Management

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Peter Segal
Produced by Adam Sandler (executive)
Allen Covert
Jack Giarraputo
Tim Herlihy
Written by David S Dorfman
Starring Adam Sandler
Jack Nicholson
Marisa Tomei
Luis Guzman
Allen Covert
Lynne Thigpen
Woody Harrelson
John Turturro
Music by Teddy Castellucci
Cinematography Donald McAlpine
Editing by Jeff Gourson
Studio Revolution Studios
Happy Madison
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) April 11, 2003
Running time 106 min
Country United States
Language English
Budget $75 million
Gross revenue $195,745,823

Anger Management is a 2003 comedy film starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, directed by Peter Segal and written by David S Dorfman. It was produced by Revolution Studios in association with Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions and was distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Contents

[edit] Plot

 The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (April 2009)

The film begins in 1978, where a young Dave Buznik sits on a street corner, looking at the girl of his dreams jumping rope. She comes over and wants to play truth or dare. He picks dare, and she says to kiss her. Right as he's about to, the local school bully Arnie Shankman pulls down his pants and underwear, embarrassing him in front of everybody. Shankman's antics have traumatized Dave from there on, kissing in public. In the present day, a grown up Dave Buznik works at a cat catalog company, but he still has problems with standing up for himself such as dealing with an abusive boss who frequently takes credit for his work, much to the concern of his girlfriend Linda.

On the plane, a person is in his assigned seat. Dave is invited to sit beside a person who introduces himself as Buddy Rydell. Buddy seems very annoying and laughs out loud at a movie. Not wanting Dave to miss out, he tells him to get a headset. Dave asks for one, but the flight attendant he asks just starts talking nonstop to another flight attendant, generally ignoring his request. Annoyed, Dave asks her again, tapping her on the arm, and she demands that he lower his voice and keep calm, although he is quite calm. The flight's air marshal soon enters the conversation and ends up tasering Dave due to misconstrued words that he interprets as being racist.

The next scene is in a court with Dave on trial. He is found guilty of an assault charge against the flight attendant, and the judge declares that he pay $3500 and go for anger management sessions to prevent further outbursts. When Dave arrives at his first therapy date, he discovers his therapist is Buddy from the flight, but when he tries to talk his way out of the court order, Buddy explains he must go through one session first. During group therapy, he meets a diverse group of characters with assorted mental issues. He loses his temper more than once, although this is mainly due to Buddy's facetious attempts to get Dave to open up to the group. After the session, Buddy says that he wants to extend Dave's therapy because of the combative behavior he just showed. He begins by assigning him to an "Anger Ally", Chuck, an excitable Grenada invasion veteran with a penchant for violence and profanity. That night, they go to a bar, where Chuck picks a fight with two men; one of whom is blind and whom Chuck thinks is staring at him. The confrontation escalates into a huge brawl, and Dave is viciously attacked by the blind man with his cane. Attempting to wrestle it away to prevent anybody else being hurt, Dave accidentally strikes a cocktail waitress in the face.

Dave appears back in court on charges of brutally assaulting the waitress, and the judge mistakenly is convinced that he was also trying to steal the cane. Just before he is sentenced to one year in prison, Buddy steps in and talks to the judge about an alternative to the jail term for Dave. She then changes her mind due to her respect for Buddy and then sentences him to 30 days of intensive anger management sessions. Buddy moves in with Dave and immediately starts laying down rules of conduct. He is required to accompany Dave to work, raising Dave's ire on the first day of this arrangement as he causes Dave's lateness. When they get there, Buddy insults Dave's contemptuous boss and smart-aleck rival, embarrassing Dave further. Later, Dave answers a call saying that Buddy's mother is having a non life-threatening surgery in Boston. Dave tells Buddy, who assumes the worst and begins sobbing. To make him feel better, Dave says the surgery isn't serious. Buddy says it was a good joke and vows to get him back, revealing that Dave must go with him to Boston. Before they leave, Buddy finds his car has been blocked in its parking space. After shattering the offending car's window, removing the parking brake, and leaving his calling card in the windshield wiper, Buddy rams it off the high rise lot.

After checking on Buddy's mother, they stop at a bayside restaurant. Buddy asks Dave to go to the bar and pick up a beautiful woman. He tries and fails miserably. Buddy asks him do to it with more confidence and a choice phrase of his own invention. After succeeding and having a couple of drinks, Dave realizes that Buddy is gone and goes to the woman's home. There, she tries to seduce him, but feeling this would be dishonest to Linda, he says he has a girlfriend. Enraged, she launches into a fit, and Dave is forced to flee the house. After tracking Buddy down and confronting him, he learns that Buddy told Linda all about the encounter at the bar. Dave cannot believe Buddy would betray his trust, but Buddy then reveals that the woman he urged him to pick up was an actress and former patient of his. It is then realized that this is Buddy's way of getting back at Dave for the joke he pulled about his "dying mother."

On the way back to New York, they decide to be friends again. Buddy takes a detour to a Buddhist temple, where his former childhood bully Arnie Shankman is now a monk. Buddy wants Dave to confront him, which appears impossible given Dave's reluctance and Arnie's peaceful manner. At first, Arnie seems remorseful for his past treatment of Dave, and it appears that they might be able to bury the hatchet. However, Buddy quickly initiates a confrontation by relaying non-existent insults Dave has told him about Arnie and his family. Dave beats Arnie in a fight, while Buddy shoots at the monks with a water gun, causing them to attack him. However, both Buddy and Dave escape from the monastery.

When they return, Dave talks to Linda, who wants to have a separate relationship for a while. They agree, with Dave learning that Buddy has started dating Linda. Enraged, Dave attacks Buddy and is placed back in court on assault charges. Buddy files a restraining order against him, but drops the charges. With his boss waiting for his latest assignment, Andrew being particularly annoying and with Buddy dating Linda, Dave goes on a rampage. He humiliates his boss and punches Andrew in the face. After taking care of them, he learns that Buddy is taking Linda out to a New York Yankees game that night. Thinking that Buddy is going to propose marriage to Linda, which was his original plan, Dave races to the stadium, where he manages to get onto the field and grab a microphone from the singer preparing the United States National Anthem. He gets Linda to stand up and he runs up to her. He asks her to marry him and she says that before she makes her decision, he has to kiss her in front of everybody. He does and as they are kissing the scoreboard displays a good luck wish to Dave and Linda from Buddy. Dave learns he has graduated from anger management and is confused. He finds Buddy, who says that everything that happened was a setup and all directed toward his therapy.

It turns out Buddy is good friends with everyone Dave met, except for the Air Marshall who was just having a bad day. Linda enrolled Dave into therapy because she was worried about him and it started on the plane. Buddy, having assessed the situation, determined that Dave was too quick to bottle up his emotions, and his isolation was both keeping him from reaching out to Linda and delaying an eventual relationship-ending confrontation at some point in the future. His true "graduation" was the culmination of facing and conquering his emotional distance. Buddy's carefully calculated approach removed all sources of frustration and potential targets of Dave's anger until it could be focused at Buddy himself. Once his priorities were in order, Dave was able to see people and events in his life with maturity and deal with his anger, and other emotions, with maturity.

The film ends where the majority of the film's cast are celebrating Dave's graduation in a park. Dave pulls a joke on Buddy, having a friend of his pose as the owner of the car Buddy ruined earlier in the movie. The friend pulls out a gun, and Dave stands up to him, citing what he learned from Buddy, it's revealed the gun is a water gun, which Buddy used on the monks earlier. The group laugh and finish by singing "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story.

[edit] Cast

Several others appeared as them selves, such as:

[edit] Soundtrack

[edit] Critical reception

Anger Management received rather mixed reviews from movie critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 43% of critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average reviewer score of 5.1/10, based on 179 reviews.[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 38 reviews.[2]

This was Lynne Thigpen's last film—she died only a month before the film's release—and is dedicated in her memory.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Anger Management Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1121649-anger_management/. Retrieved on 2008-05-17. 
  2. ^ "Anger Management (2003): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/angermanagement. Retrieved on 2008-05-17. 

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Phone Booth		 Box office number-one films of 2003 (USA)
April 13, 2003 – April 20, 2003		 Succeeded by
Identity
v • d • e
Films directed by Peter Segal

Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994) • Tommy Boy (1995) • My Fellow Americans (1996) • Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) • Anger Management (2003) • 50 First Dates (2004) • The Longest Yard (2005) • Get Smart (2008)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger_Management"
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