Anger Management

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The two XXL personalities are in fit, fighting form in a comedy as bracing and furiously right for the moment as it is broad and huggable.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Miller time for the funny bone.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Each actor is unusually watchful and wily, and their actorly competition underscores the one-upmanship of their characters.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's good fun for a while, especially the therapy sessions that feature Luis Guzman as a gay hood with a paunch he covers in Day-Glo spandex and John Turturro as Dave's "anger buddy." John C. Reilly also scores as a bully turned Buddhist monk.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

At a time when screen comedy has its own problems with anger management, Sandler's self-possessed style is as refreshing as it is funny.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Without insult to either film, Anger Management could be called "Punch-Drunk Love" for the masses.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As a comedy duo Nicholson and Sandler pose no threat to the legacy of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, in part because Sandler is so outclassed, but mostly because everyone involved is playing it safe.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Nicholson operates in full-bore demonic mode in Anger Management, eclipsing gentle star Adam Sandler and satisfying everybody who's been waiting for Hollywood's Wild Man to cut loose once more.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Essentially a one-joke movie that milks its central conceit long after there's nothing left.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A ragged piece of filmmaking, but the odds are you'll have as good a time watching it as Nicholson and Sandler seemed to have making it.

USA Today Mike Clark

Only a smattering of the potential is realized in this tolerable disappointment, which is so unworthy of getting angry about that it will still become a knee-jerk hit.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The important things first: It's always a relief to come out of an Adam Sandler movie without a case of hives, and you can comfortably attend Anger Management without prophylactic antihistamines.

Variety Todd McCarthy

The antics here are strained, graceless and tiresomely crude, the sorts of things audiences feel they're supposed to laugh at rather than well-developed situations that generate genuine amusement.

Film Threat Kevin Carr

As with many films nowadays, the supporting cast actually shines more than the principles.

LA Weekly John Powers

Although Sandler's formula remains constant -- the downtrodden hero can do eet! -- what's new is his willingness to share the screen equally with a male co-star. Not that anyone could get in the way of that mugging steamroller Nicholson.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Consistently wacky and sometimes nearly surreal.

Time Richard Corliss

It should make audiences happy. But then so did most of his earlier movies, and they were lame, gnat-brained pieces of demagogic doo-doo!

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Needing the gristle of its title, the film should have been angrier.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Undercooked, although it feels enough like a comedy for you to swallow it if you have to.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Who's responsible for this comedy proving such a disappointment- Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler or director Peter Segal? Nope. The correct answer: screenwriter David Dorfman.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

With Nicholson and Sandler aboard, we want to love it madly. But instead of a tickle, this big-name comedy just grates.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Has hell frozen over? Not only is Jack Nicholson starring in a buddy movie alongside Adam Sandler, but of the two, Sandler's low-key approach is preferable.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though what he does here pretty much defines coasting, Nicholson just fooling around adds an energy to even the kind of hopelessly contrived material that lets you know that the lowest common denominator just got lower.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Disposable, sporadically amusing.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The concept is inspired. The execution is lame. Anger Management, a film that might have been one of Adam Sandler's best, becomes one of Jack Nicholson's worst.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Doesn't possess the discipline to peel laughs off its potentially riotous premise. Instead, Segal and company grope desperately for every low gag they can find, whether or not it has anything to do with the story.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

What's most astonishing is that a film populated by two madmen can grow so wearying and dull; the movie crawls toward its climax, which is so barmy it's almost surreal.

Slate David Edelstein

Anger Management is bearable up to its protracted climax, set in Yankee Stadium, which gets my vote for the most excruciating wind-up of any comedy, ever.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Isn't all bad. It isn't good, either, but it's better than it deserves to be, and if one sits and watches, the laughs do come, a few.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

What we're left with is an unfocused, rambling concept that lumbers off the ground but never really soars to the level of lunacy it could, especially at the afterthought of an ending, which is nonsensical at best.

Newsweek David Ansen

Unless you’re 15 at heart, you may need anger management yourself after sitting through this aggressively crass comedy, which alternates between mean-spirited slapstick and arbitrary uplift.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's slapdash, crudely crafted and resolutely adolescent. And occasionally, though only occasionally, very funny.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Anger Management is so almost-but-not-quite funny that it feels like one colossal gyp.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Sandler has become one of our primary symbols of the modern rage-repressed American male. Let’s hope that one day he will learn to channel that rage to greater effect.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The most dispiriting thing about Anger Management is that its cameos seem like leftovers.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's a remarkable, if appalling, spectacle of self-abasement. But of course, that's Sandler's specialty.

TV Guide Steve Simels

But by the time the big not-so-surprise ending rolls around -- no, nothing that happened was exactly as it seemed -- most viewers will have long since stopped caring.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.