Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Anger Management: Volume Two Blu-ray Movie Review

Mismanagement is more like it.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 16, 2013

Is Selma Blair thanking her lucky stars? In one of the very few moments that managed to get the struggling FX series Anger Management even a little press, Blair was dismissed after being just the latest person to have a run-in with the series’ star Charlie Sheen. The spin-meisters went into overdrive, first insisting that Blair’s departure had been imminent for some time, but then backtracking a bit when the actress threatened a lawsuit for lost wages. Sheen was reported as having delivered an ultimatum to the show’s producers (sound familiar?) that it was either him or her, after Blair had gone public decrying Sheen’s sloppy work habits (like reportedly not showing up to work at all), and in yet the latest brilliant example of Hollywood co-dependency, Sheen of course came out on top of this particular conflict. As I mentioned in our Anger Management: Season One Blu-ray review, the series opened to a rather healthy audience share, no doubt drawn by the then recent brouhaha raised by Sheen when he exited Two and a Half Men, something that guaranteed the series an order of some 90 or so episodes, but things have not gone—er— winningly since then, with droves of people refusing to revisit this latest Sheen enterprise, and the series barely being able to muster a relatively paltry one million viewers most weeks. Perhaps that’s a good sign, though, one that indicates the public has finally had enough of Sheen’s antics (something reinforced by the flameout of the actually kind of interesting pseudo-biopic starring Sheen, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan IIl). Anger Management is just stale, tired and by the numbers comedy, something that’s especially ironic considering Sheen’s well publicized rants that his previous effort, Two and a Half Men, was guilty of being those very same things. In fact when compared to Anger Management, Two and a Half Men seems like a sparkling soufflé written by Noel Coward, which is perhaps just one indication of how incredibly bland this series really is.

The pathetic lack of laughs in this sad series is lamentable since there’s absolutely no question that, aside from Sheen anyway, the cast is quite colorful and fun to watch. Anger Management takes a page out of the old Bob Newhart Show and posits Sheen as a therapist with a gaggle of odd folks to whom he’s supposedly providing advice. These include elder homophobe Ed (Barry Corbin), younger gay personal shopping assistant Patrick (Michael Arden), hapless self-esteem problem Nolan (Derek Richardson), and Valley Girl Lacey (Noureen DeWulf), whom Nolan has a crush on but who regularly crushes Nolan with her unending string of put downs. There’s obvious material here to be mined, but the show’s writing staff seems spectacularly ill equipped to come up with anything approaching a laugh out loud punchline.

Still on board are Charlie’s ex-wife Jennifer (Shawnee Smith), precious daughter Sam (Danila Bobadilla), and therapist- lover (certainly one of the smarmiest elements of this already smarmy show) Kate (the aforementioned Selma Blair). Joining the cast this year as a more or less regular is Martin Sheen as Charlie’s father. One has to wonder why the elder Sheen would degrade himself in a show of this bottom feeding ambience. One has to assume either he’s being extremely well paid, or perhaps he’s there as Charlie’s “sober companion”, keeping his frequently errant son on the straight and narrow.

The show is oddly all over the place, and not just because of the Blair situation, which brings a sudden exit to the Kate character after the series has spent most of the season seemingly establishing the fact that she and Charlie would finally become a "real" couple. Halting relationships between various patients are explored, then jettisoned, Charlie’s family dynamic is peered into, then jettisoned, and even ex-wife Jen’s past rears its semi-ugly head when Brian Austin Green jumps back into a recurring role as her boyfriend whom Charlie has issues with. All of this plays out resolutely predictably, despite the lurching quality that any given episode seems to specialize in. About halfway through this season, though, I became aware of one very peculiar fact. There actually is some decent comedy, albeit in dribs and drabs, sprinkled throughout Anger Management. What sinks even the occasionally deft punchline, however, is the maddeningly “sweetened” laughter, which sounds like it’s been ported over from an old Bewitched rerun. Maybe this is a show that would play better without a live audience and the canned laughter which is obviously augmented to make the show seem funnier than it is. Of course, without a live audience, that would leave only the home viewership—and that is diminishing by the week.

Anger Management: Volume Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

It's perhaps only fitting that Anger Management's AVC encoded 1080p transfer in .1.78:1 (courtesy of Lionsgate Films) is about as middling as the rest of the series. Things rarely pop with any immediacy, and while colors are accurate looking, there's simply nothing really vivid from a palette standpoint for this show to hang its already questionable hat on. The second season follows the first's proclivity for midrange shots which tend to capture at least two, and usually more, characters at the same time, so fine detail rarely has the opportunity to rise to really excellent levels. This is an "okay" looking presentation that is certainly decently sharp and well defined, but which never really makes much of a high definition impression.

Anger Management: Volume Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Anger Management's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, much like the video presentation, has little opportunity to really offer much "wow" factor. In fact, aside from occasional effects like traffic noises when characters are out in cars, there's fairly little immersion or surround activity here, other than the absurdly artificial sounding "sweetened" laughter, something that actually becomes downright annoying after a while. That said, dialogue is very cleanly presented, with excellent fidelity. Dynamic range is nil in this series, which meanders along with the same monotonous sonic level that the rest of the show exhibits on a creative side.

Anger Management: Volume Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Gag Reel (1080p; 10:38) has a rather expectedly high count of Sheen not remembering his lines.

In a sign of how barren this enterprise really is, Previews and Bookmarks (Bookmarks) are listed as the (only) Special Features on the first disc.

Anger Management: Volume Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If anything, this second season of Anger Management is even more mediocre than the first. A rather shocking lack of smart writing sinks this series, and it's not helped by Sheen's mugging and almost narcissistic "look at me" wink-fest performance. The supporting cast is much better, though they have virtually nothing to work with most of the time. There's ample material here with this gaggle of odd characters, but no one seems to know what to do with them. They are in fact rather like those poor souls lost in the famous Pirandello play, characters in search of an author. Due to the pre-sale of this lame and consistently unfunny series, we're unfortunately due for at least two more seasons of this dreck. Blair's replacement Laura Bell Bundy may already be scouring her contract for an escape clause.