Verdict: Much more than "Mr. Deeds;" much less than "The Wedding Singer."

By BOB LONGINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In the lineup of limp comedies from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company, "Anger Management" leaps pretty quickly to the top of the heap.

The best things one can say about it? It isn't as insulting as "Little Nicky." Not as lame as "The Animal." Nary as comically hopeless as "The Master of Disguise."

In fact, "Anger Management" isn't half bad. It has its funny moments, as in the comedy's group therapy session when co-star John Turturro wigs out, displaying the itchy-trigger-finger fatigue brought on by the battle scars of war. Vietnam, someone wonders? No. Grenada.

Along with Turturro, Jack Nicholson and Marisa Tomei provide Sandler his best acting support in years. And the flick is packed with just enough sports cameos to satisfy the kind of mainstream moviegoer who wouldn't venture near "The Pianist" even if it and Adrien Brody won 100 Oscars.

The set-up is simple and effective. Sandler plays Dave Buznik, an outwardly mild-mannered New Yorker who finds it difficult to show public displays of affection toward the girl he wants to marry (Tomei).

On a business flight, he calmly keeps requesting a headset and after he reaches out and lightly touches a stewardess, the accusations against him start flying. He winds up in court. Later, a similar run-in with a blind man means one thing: He must enroll in anger management therapy or serve a year's time in jail.

Like on "Seinfeld," it's as though Sandler's been sentenced to serve as Jerry's butler.

Sandler's over-the-top therapist, of course, is Nicholson, who dons his weirdest, way-outest "About Schmidt" form.

He spouts hopeless homilies ("Temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it") and, in a moment of absurd charm, forces an inwardly irritated Sandler to stop his car on a busy New York bridge and sing "I Feel Pretty" from "West Side Story."

In his role, Nicholson simply runs with audacious abandon, a demonic glee in his eyes and his hair looking like he just stuck his finger in an electrical outlet. He talks about songs of madness and obsession. Like The Carpenters' "Close to You." Who else in a movie like this could burble "Bibbidy-Bobbidi-Boo" and completely get away with it. Well, perhaps Roger Rabbit.

On one level, "Anger Management" does operate as a kind of cartoon. Like Nicholson, Turturro is on overdrive. You half expect his eyes to bug out and his ears to emit steam.

The result makes for a kind of manic "Meet the Parents," a kind of anxious "Analyze This" and "... That."

But this is still an Adam Sandler movie. That means more than a movie's fair share of penis jokes and a smattering of humor involving gays (Luis Guzmán plays a very effeminate member of Sandler's therapy group; Woody Harrelson emerges as a makeup-heavy transvestite).

Still, it is the kind of mainstream-happy movie that could yank the nation out of its recent box-office doldrums. At least for a weekend.