If you tell your friend a joke, he’ll laugh, unless, of course, it’s a bad joke, in which case he’ll cringe. But if you start to tell your friend a joke but change the subject before the punch line, he will not laugh nor cringe, but probably just stand there and look at you dumfounded. If you do this over and over, more likely than not, your friend will not be your friend for long.

Hence the problem with Anger Management, a film that irritated me so profusely I wanted to seek just that. It is one big joke without a punch line; it develops humorous situations but doesn’t include any payoffs. For example, Woody Harrelson plays a New York cross dresser who, at one point in the movie, comes on to the character played by Adam Sandler. Funny possibilities abound, but Harrelson exits the scene before anything funny actually occurs. This is maddening, and the movie does it over and over again, ranking it among the worst comedies to date in a year that includes Kangaroo Jack and Old School.

That’s not surprising considering that a novice—probably the cheapest guy available—penned the script, and that Peter Segal directed, whose comedies have become increasingly pathetic over the years (beginning with The Naked Gun 33 ½: The Final Insult, and most recently, The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps). Indeed, Anger Management is faithful to the pattern.

Sandler plays Dave, an assistant at a pet clothing company who, after a freak encounter with a flight attendant, finds himself in the care of anger management therapist Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). The concept has potential, especially when we discover Rydell is a wacko who uses unorthodox methods on his victims—ahem—patients. But, unfortunately, David Dorfman’s screenplay resorts to shameless slapstick humor and sex jokes, even prime comic opportunities are glaring in front of his face.

Anger Management does what Bad Company attempted: it pairs a generation that can act with a generation that can’t. Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler are as far apart on the talent-o-meter as they get. Some actors could rise to the occasion of working alongside someone like Jack Nicholson, but Sandler cannot. As always, Nicholson (just earning a paycheck) does wonderful things with his character, but his talents are wasted opposite Adam Sandler. Stick Jim Carrey in Sandler’s role and you might have something. He can take even an unfunny situation and make us laugh, not at the jokes, but because Jim Carrey is doing funny things. Sandler is wrong for this role because A) he can’t act, B) uses one facial expression throughout, and C) cannot deliver even a funny joke amusingly. He’s a death sentence to any movie.

Despite my complaints, there are a few funny things in Anger Management. One involves angry drivers screaming obscenities at Dave after Buddy pulls the keys out of the ignition as they are driving across a busy New York City bridge. Another involves Sandler briefly losing his temper and pitching an office accessory at a co-worker, knocking him to the ground. If these are the highlights of the movie, that should tell you something.

No, Jack. A hug will not make it better.