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.

Plot

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The film begins in 1978, with a young Dave Buznik sitting on a street corner, looking at the girl of his dreams. She asks him to play truth or dare. When he picks dare, she dares him to kiss her. As he's about to, the local bully Arnie Shankman pulls down his pants and underwear, embarrassing him in front of everybody and leaving him with a lasting trauma about kissing in public. Skipping to the present day, a grown up Dave Buznik works at a cat catalog company, as a self-effacing secretary whose abusive boss takes credit for his work. His problems also extend to his private life, much to the concern of his girlfriend Linda.

While travelling to an important business meeting, he finds a man seated in his assigned seat. Dave is invited to sit himself next to another man who introduces himself as Buddy Rydell. Buddy turns out to be very irritating and keeps Dave from getting any sleep by laughing out loud at a movie he’s watching. When Dave protests, Buddy pressures him to watch it too. Dave asks the flight attendant for a headset but she ignores him and seems to be mocking him to another flight attendant. When Dave asks her again by tapping her on the arm, she overreacts and demands that he lower his voice and keep calm. The flight's air marshal soon enters the conversation and ends up tasering Dave over comments which he interprets as being racist.

Dave is then taken to court and charged. He is found guilty of assault, fined $3500 and sentenced to anger management therapy. Arriving at his first therapy date, he discovers that his therapist is none other than Buddy. He asks Buddy to sign the court order to save him having to attend the therapy but Buddy replies that his professional pride demands that Dave attend at least one session. In the group therapy, he meets a diverse group of characters with assorted mental issues. Encouraged to take part, he loses his temper more than once, mostly due to Buddy's facetious attempts to get Dave to open up to the group. After the session, Buddy tells Dave that he is showing signs of Toxic Anger Syndrome and will have to attend the therapy. He begins by assigning him to an "Anger Ally", Chuck, a psychotic Grenada invasion veteran with a penchant for violence and profanity. That night, at a bar, Chuck picks a fight with two men; one of whom is blind. When he intervenes to calm the situation, Dave is attacked by the blind man who beats him with his cane. Grabbing hold of it, Dave accidentally strikes a cocktail waitress in the face.

Buddy uses the ensuing court case to enlist Dave in his intense Anger management therapy and thereby saving him from being sentenced to a year in prison. The sentence is suspended on condition of his successfully completing the therapy. Buddy then moves into Dave’s apartment and finds plenty of ways to aggravate Dave, even accompanying him to work. Buddy causes Dave to arrive late to work when he stops the car on the way. He forces Dave to sing the song "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story, while the traffic builds up around them. The song indeed has a calming effect on Dave.

Dave is asked to pass Buddy a message to say that Buddy's mother is having non life-threatening surgery in Boston, but when he does he exaggerates its seriousness and causes Buddy to have a breakdown. Regretting this deceit, Dave then confesses that the surgery isn't serious. Buddy takes it well but vows to get him back. Buddy then tells Dave that he has to accompany him to Boston. Going to collect his car from the high rise lot, Buddy finds that his car has been boxed in its parking space. After gaining access to the offending car and removing the parking brake, Buddy accidentally causes the car to fall off the building.

After checking on Buddy's mother, they stop at a bayside restaurant. Buddy challenges Dave to go to the bar and pick up a beautiful woman. He succeeds with Buddy’s help and after a couple of drinks, he realizes that Buddy has gone and ends up going to the woman's home. Once there, she tries to seduce him, but he rejects her out of loyalty to Linda. She goes into a rage, and Dave is forced to flee the house. Once reunited with Buddy, he is devastated to learn that Buddy has told Linda about his flirt with the woman. Buddy then reveals that the woman he urged him to pick up was a former patient of his and that this is his way of getting back at Dave for the joke he pulled about his "dying mother”. Buddy agrees that when they get back to New York, he will tell Linda the truth.

On the way back to New York, Buddy takes a detour to a Buddhist temple, so that Dave can confront Arnie Shankman, his childhood bully. Arnie, who is now a monk, seems remorseful for his previous behaviour and it seems that there will be a reconciliation. Buddy quickly starts a confrontation by lying to Arnie about insulting comments Dave is supposed to have made about Arnie’s sister. Dave beats Arnie in a fight and chased from the grounds by the other monks, both Buddy and Dave escape from the monastery.

When they return, Dave attempts to propose to Linda but loses his nerve. Disappointed, Linda proposes that they both take a break from the relationship. Dave agrees and gives Linda the freedom to see other men. Later, Dave attacks Buddy when he learns that he has started dating Linda and is brought back to court on assault charges. While leaving the court, his boss pressures him to return his latest assignment, Dave snaps, humiliates his boss and punches Andrew, Linda’s ex, in the face. Dave learns that Buddy is taking Linda out to a New York Yankees game that night. Assuming that Buddy has stolen his idea and is going to propose marriage to Linda, he manages to race to the stadium, get on the field and grab a microphone. Appealing to Linda over the tannoy to stand up, he proposes to her in public. She says that first; to prove his love, he must kiss her in front of the audience. When he does, she tells him that he has graduated from anger management. Buddy explains how Linda first approached him and that everything that has happened was a setup directed toward his therapy.

It turns out Buddy is friends with everyone Dave met. His "graduation" was the culmination of facing and conquering his emotional distance. Buddy's carefully calculated approach removed all outside sources of frustration and every potential target of Dave's anger until it could be focused at Buddy himself, enabling Dave to see the people and events in his life with maturity and hence deal sensibly with his emotions.

The film ends with the main characters celebrating Dave's graduation in central park. A man approaches and asks for Buddy, when Buddy steps forward, the man pulls a gun and identifies himself as the man whose Lexus was destroyed in the lot. Dave confronts the man, citing what he has learned from Buddy. The situation is diffused when the man squirts Dave in the face, revealing the pistol to be a toy. The group laugh and finish by singing "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story.

Cast

• Adam Sandler as Dave Buznik
• Jack Nicholson as Dr. Buddy Rydell
• Marisa Tomei as Linda
• Luis Guzman as Lou
• Jonathan Loughran as Nate
• Kurt Fuller as Frank Head
• Krista Allen as Stacy
• January Jones as Gina
• John Turturro as Chuck
• Lynne Thigpen as Judge Brenda Daniels
• Woody Harrelson as Galaxia the tranvestite prostitute/Gary the Security Guard
• Kevin Nealon as Sam, Dave's Lawyer
• Allen Covert as Andrew
• Nancy Walls as Flight Attendant
• John C. Reilly (uncredited) as Older Monk Arnie Shankman
• Heather Graham (uncredited) as Kendra
• Harry Dean Stanton (uncredited) as Blind Man

Several others appeared as them selves, such as:

• Cody Arens
• John McEnroe
• Derek Jeter
• Robert Merrill
• Bob Sheppard
• Judith Nathan
• Bob Knight
• Roger Clemens
• Rudy Giuliani

Soundtrack

• Blondie - "Heart of Glass"
• Jimmy Buffett - "Margaritaville"
• Van Halen - "Ice Cream Man"
• Bee Gees - "How Deep is Your Love"
• The Rolling Stones - "19th Nervous Breakdown"
• Santana - "Black Magic Woman"
• Filter - "The Only Way is the Wrong Way"
• The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again"
• Louis Prima - "When You're Smiling"
• Jane's Addiction - "Stop!"

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.

References

External links

• Official website
• Anger Management at the Internet Movie Database
• Anger Management at Allmovie
• Anger Management at Rotten Tomatoes
• Anger Management at Metacritic
• Anger Management at Box Office Mojo