Anger Management (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Animation & Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary-Peter Segal (Director) and Adam Sandler (Actor) Quiz-Do You Have Anger Problems? Deleted Scenes-4 Featurette-Skull Session Featurette-My Buddy, Jack Outtakes Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Daddy Day Care Trailer-I Spy, National Security
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	100:46
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (46:01)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Peter Segal
Studio Distributor	Revolution Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Adam Sandler Jack Nicholson Marisa Tomei Luis Guzman
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Teddy Castellucci

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Greek Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Polish Romanian Russian Serbian Slovenian Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, Lexus - although it does get smashed.
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The premise, developed by writer David Dorfman before the script was picked up by Sandler, is of an anger management therapist who does his job by making his clients angry. That may seem a little thin to carry an entire movie, but what it does is allow Sandler to slip into his angry-man routine yet again, and in that sense, the script was perfectly suited to him. He plays Dave Buznik, secretary to a manager in a pet-clothing company. He has been single-handedly responsible for securing his boss' promotions, but has never got any of the credit - or rewards - himself. While boarding a plane for a business trip, events lead him to sit next to a slightly crazy man who introduces himself as Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), Anger Therapist. One altercation with a rather sensitive flight attendant later, and Dave finds himself in court, ordered to undertake anger management therapy, and who should be his therapist but none other than Buddy Rydell. Far from the easy ride he thought Buddy would give him, Dave moves from group therapy to intensive 24-hour therapy, and finds his life turned upside down. With only the knowledge that he wants to marry his girlfriend Linda (Marisa Tomei) at some point (but just can't quite work out how to propose), Dave must face his own inner demons before he can reclaim his life.

    While this film may have started life without Adam Sandler in mind, it is perfectly suited to him. The role of Dave Buznik allows Sandler to slip straight back into his trademark character who has rage issues bubbling just beneath the surface. The difference this time is that he probably has better reason for his outbursts than normal. Jack Nicholson is well suited to the role of the extremely eccentric Dr Buddy Rydell, as he is able to lend the character enough of a hint of insanity to make it work. The chemistry between the two is good, and they play off each other quite well, adding a natural feel to the relationship. So where are the problems? The main problem is that the jokes are simply not all that funny. This is very much a chuckle film, more than a laugh-out-loud film. There are some moments of true hilariousness - mostly involving the ways in which Buddy taunts Dave - but for the most part the film is simply amusing.

    Obviously there are far worse things than spending 100 minutes being amused, but with the stellar cast, it does seem to be a bit of a let down. One upside is that as most of the comedy comes from the performances, the film does have a higher re-watch value than a typical comedy. Sandler and Nicholson are never really stretched, but then again, they didn't become the huge stars they are today by being average, so not being stretched is far from a poor performance. Marisa Tomei is the typical girlfriend, being pretty and instantly lovable - and extremely low maintenance - and also manages to make the only totally "straight" character in the film interesting, while Sandler's regular comic offsiders, as well as the other guests stars, are all trying hard.

    In the end, "trying hard" is the story of this movie. It has the stellar cast, the good to enthusiastic performances, and on top of that looks better than the average comedy (thanks to Australian cinematographer Donald McAlpine), but like a model plane without any glue, it doesn't quite hold together. Those who have seen it (and that's most people, judging by its theatrical performance) will probably come back to it at some stage for the cast alone, while those who haven't should at least give it a rent for the same reason. It just is not really a keeper.

Video

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, this transfer is 16x9 enhanced. The IMDB lists the theatrical ratio of this film as 2.35:1 (which is also the ratio of the deleted scenes, and the bloopers, suggesting that 2.35:1 is definitely correct), so presumably this transfer has been slightly cropped top and bottom to achieve the new ratio. While it is not going to affect the look of the film very much, it would be nice to know why it had to be done.

    The transfer is extremely sharp, and contains plenty of fine detail. Clarity is excellent, with even the smallest nuances easily conveyed. There is very little in the way of visible grain, with only the short section from 68:02 to 68:18 being all that noticeable. Shadow detail is also excellent, with the darker areas of the screen having very good depth, and never fading away to murkiness. There is no low level noise present.

    Colours are excellent, although at times do appear ever so slightly muted, but as all of the instances of this occur during outdoor scenes, it is probably the result of relying on natural lighting. For the vast majority of the time, the colours are rich and vibrant, from the urban hues of Dave's neighbourhood to the deep greens of the countryside through which Dave and Buddy drive, all are rendered with exceptional accuracy.

    There are no compression artefacts at all in this transfer, and almost no film artefacts with only the tiny fleck at 36:26 drawing attention (presumably there are more, but if they are all the size of that one, they will be hard to spot). Aliasing, thankfully, is also only a minor issue, with the worst instances being on the "fish-net" style shirt worn by Luis Guzmán from 9:42 for the remainder of the scene being obvious (although the shirt itself is no pretty sight either).

    The subtitles are generally accurate, with very little left off. In the increasingly common manner, the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles are displayed (where possible) under the character who is actually speaking the line, which will help out with understanding.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change taking place at 46:01 between Chapters 18 and 19. It is reasonably well placed, although still noticeable due to the audio dropout.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five soundtracks on this disc. The first four are the original English dialogue, and dubs in Czech, Hungarian, and Russian all presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 (with the English at 448Kbps, and the others all at 384Kbps). The fifth track is the English Audio Commentary track in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround (at 192Kbps).

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times. The mixing of score, effects, and dialogue never causes an issue. Audio sync is also spot on, and is never a problem throughout the transfer.

    The score is credited to Teddy Castellucci, and it is a rather good one, working in elements from some of the show tunes sung in therapy, and generally carrying the momentum of the film without being too noticeable. An example of good solid score work.

    Surround activity is quite good, although the surrounds are not in use at all times. There is quite a bit of ambient noise, and they are well used to carry the score, but there are a number of occasions where they go silent. Given the mostly dialogue-driven nature of this film that is not a huge let down.

    The subwoofer is used to a moderate extent, backing up the score and a few sound effects, but it never really gets to build up a rumble. Again, however, that is not really a big disappointment for such a dialogue-driven film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Audio Commentary - Peter Segal (Director) and Adam Sandler (Actor)

DVD Game - Do You Have Anger Problems?

Deleted Scenes (10:21)

• Candy Store (2:26) - The original introductory scene for Adam Sandler features his character being downtrodden by a clerk at the candy store in the airport.
• Burly Man (1:15) - An extension to the driving scene that comes before the bridge song, where Dave almost has an accident, and inadvertently ends up insulting a rather burly man.
• Gas & Hospital (5:14) - Two scenes back to back that came prior to the existing hospital scene. They are about two kids fighting over a hat, and Buddy's mother (who is black). Neither seems to be funny at all, so it is a good thing they were cut.
• McEnroe (1:26) - An extension to the John McEnroe cameo that actually makes a bit more sense than the one in the movie.

Featurette - Skull Session (17:55)

Featurette - My Buddy, Jack (4:07)

Bloopers Reel (5:37)

Trailers

• Anger Management (1:26)
• Charlies Angels: Full Throttle (2:20)
• Daddy Day Care (2:02)
• I Spy (2:16)
• National Security (??)

• Trailers for- Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights, As Good As It Gets, S.W.A.T., Hollywood Homicide, Mona Lisa Smiles, Mr. Deeds, Radio, Peter Pan.
• French 5.1 soundtrack

• Trailers for - Charlies Angels: Full Throttle, I Spy, National Security
• Russian, Czech, and Hungarian 5.1 soundtracks.
• Multi-lingual subtitles

    The video quality is only slightly short of perfect, and the only problems are so minor as to be almost unnoticeable.

    The audio quality is very good, especially for a dialogue-driven comedy, and provides an excellent listening experience.

    The extras are a little disappointing considering how successful this movie was, but there is enough there to at least fend off any displeasure.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall