What happens when Charlie Sheen leaves Two and a Half Men in spectacularly hilarious fashion, becomes a pop culture punch-line and winds up looking for a new show to star in? Anger Management, a television show very loosely based off the Adam Sandler film of the same name.
Sheen plays a washed-up minor league baseball player who has wound up becoming a therapist. And these are his wacky adventures as he struggles to deal with life. Essentially he’s playing Charlie from Men as a therapist and without Jon Cryer, of course, as he deals with his problems as a womanizing professional who also happens to run group therapy sessions with ex-cons.
If you missed Sheen on Men then this is your show because it’s nearly the same. This time around he has an ex-wife (Shawnee Smith) and a daughter (Daniela Bobadilla) to go with anger issues, instead of a drinking problem, but it has the same basic premise. Charlie does something wacky, deals with the consequences and there’s some sort of resolution to it all.
If you’re a fan of Sheen and still say “Winning” then this is your show. It’s the same formula as Men in that Sheen is basically playing himself as an overgrown man-child with a high level profession one wonders how exactly he got considering his personal habits. Otherwise it’s just a basic cable version of the same drivel that Ashton Kutcher participates in.
There’s a Gag Reel, an interview with Charlie Sheen about the show and a group interview with the “patients” on the show.
Lionsgate presents Anger Management . Starring Charlie Sheen, Selma Blair, Shawnee Smith, Daniela Bobadilla Running time: 220 minutes. Not Rated. Released: January 8, 2013. Available at Amazon.com.
