Observe and Report

(2009)

Directed by

Jody Hill

Review by Todd Plucknett

The Jody Hill film Observe and Report is a sporadically hilarious, sometimes deep, yet always quite silly comedy that fades away in the memory of the audience after a couple days. There were certain elements of the film that worked incredibly well, but there were several times when it really belittled itself when it really digressed into a formulaic slapstick comedy. That is not to say that I hated it. It still pulls several laughs out of the audience, almost all of them having to do with the recently busy Seth Rogen.

The film centers on Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen), a bipolar mall security officer who takes his job very seriously. His partners are Dennis (Michael Pena), Charles (Jesse Plemons), and the Yuen twins (Matt and John Yuan). They are obsessed with catching a flasher at the mall who recently flashed more than a dozen women in the parking lot. Ronnie feels it is his duty to catch this guy, and he will stop at nothing to protect the shoppers (think Travis Bickle as a mall cop). Meanwhile, Ronnie encounters several people in the mall. His dream girl is Brandi (Anna Faris), who is incredibly stuck up, your average blonde bombshell snob. Ronnie is always capitalizing on his free coffee from the food court, while subconsciously flirting with Nell (Collette Wolfe), one of the workers. Ronnie is also trying to keep the police department off his case, because he wants to accomplish something on his own and get full credit for it.

Ronnie also would never want to admit it, but he wanted to become a police officer, if for no other reason than to show Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), the officer who took over his mall investigation, that he can actually do it. He noticed that cops are the ones who get all the credit and are taken seriously, and they get to carry something other than mace and tasers. He wants to impress Brandi and Harrison, while keeping his ambition to become a cop secret to not offend any of his security guard friends.

The movie really would not be what it is without the stellar cast. Seth Rogen gives this role everything he has. I cannot see anyone else truly capturing all the idiosyncrasies of Ronnie as well as him. Anna Faris does a credible job, but she cannot really rise above the surface of her clichéd character. Michael Pena brings some of the biggest laughs in the film. Ray Liotta is brilliant. No one breaks down quite like he does. Collette Wolfe is fine, but there is no excuse for Kristen Wiig not being cast in that role. The other supporting roles are well played, especially the great Celia Weston, playing Ronnie’s alcoholic mother, and Danny McBride in the film’s most hilarious scene.

The main problem with the movie is that it is not that particularly well written. I understand what the movie is trying to say. It is saying something about relishing in being an everyman and not romanticizing authorities.  I get all that. It has been displayed in movies countless times. Invincible is one that immediately comes to mind. The problem with Observe and Report is how it arrives at this conclusion. There is nothing truly authentic about the movie. Everything can be predicted within the first half hour of the film. There are very few surprises, with the exception of one hilarious shocking moment at the very end of the flick. Most of it is just a cliché.

That is not to say it is not funny, though. There are dozens of side-splitting one-liners and quirks by Rogen. The problem is that writer-director Jody Hill was not really in control of the film’s tone. It starts out very good, but there were several spots in the middle where it seemed to drag (and the film was only 86 minutes). It really reduces itself to slapstick humor in the end, which is fine, except for the fact that Rogen is not a slapstick actor. I am assuming that is what Paul Blart: Mall Cop was about, which probably worked with Kevin James in the lead role. That is not what Rogen is about. Rogen is a comedian of awkwardness and timing. It almost reminded me of Mallrats, when the film became a very conventional action film and really killed its chances of having any sort of credibility.

In the end, this is just a forgettable comedy. It has several moments that will make the audience crack up, but nothing that will really stick with them after the credits are done rolling. It is worth seeing for Rogen, but that is it. I am assuming that it was not as bad as Paul Blart, but it probably hurt its box office. I went to a primetime showing on opening night, and the theater was less than a quarter full. The trailer did not do it justice either. If the last thirty minutes had been handled differently, this could have been a more serious comedy. Rogen does his best here, but he cannot make it rise above the status of mediocre stupid comedy.

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