"Anger Management" delivers predictable laughs

If there's one thing Adam Sandler's movies can offer: predictability. Save for his more serious roles in The Wedding Singer and Punch Drunk Love, we can mostly count on Sandler yelling at stuff and people either naked or getting hurt. All of this happens in the first 20 minutes of Anger Management. Anger Management is Sandler's attempt to right the ship after Mr. Deeds and 8 Crazy Nights. Remember those movies? No? Well, no one else does either. The film starts with Dave Buznik (Sandler) getting humiliated as a child, then flashes to the present, where he's your basic nice guy doormat. After a mishap on an airplane, he ends up in an anger management class taught by Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). Just as he's about to be dismissed, something else happens involving a blind man's cane and a cocktail waitress exacerbating matters, and this puts Buznik in Rydell's special one-on-one class. From here, Rydell moves in with Buznik, and the script goes exactly where it's supposed to go. The movie has some great moments. It also has its share of lame jokes and a terrible ending so full of plot holes, it unravels more than it ties together. The real star of this movie turns out to be Jack Nicholson. After his understated and heartfelt performance in last year's About Schmidt, he seems to enjoy playing Rydell and seems to enjoy stealing scenes from Sandler, who looks lost next to him. The two stars mesh well though, especially for a brief rendition of I Feel Pretty. Marissa Tomei has a role as Buznik's girlfriend, who wants him to stand up for himself. She does fine, but her character's name may as well have been token girlfriend, since she was written so two-dimensionally. Another thing Sandler movies are known for are their cameos. John C. Reilly has an embarrassingly lowbrow turn as a bully turned Buddhist monk, but Woody Harrelson, Kevin Nealon and Heather Graham sink into their respective insane cameos with ease. Rudolph Giuliani and Roger Clemens also turn up in the movie, presumably to remind everyone in the audience exactly why they're not actors. Sandler's movies always have about the same number of big laughs. Anger Management is no different. Although probably not worth $7, this movie will please the crowds at Blockbuster when it comes out on DVD. Grade: C+