Review of “Observe and Report”
Stop me if you’ve head this one. Here’s a film about a man who longs for a job in law enforcement, but due to shortcomings beyond his immediate control, he is forced into a career in consumer security. Blind to the jokes made around him at his expense, he is content, perhaps even a little obsessive and overzealous with life as a mall cop, until a serious crime brings out the inner law enforcer inside and he rises to the occasion.
What was that? “Stop!” you say? “Didn’t you just review this exact same film a few weeks ago?” As Shakespeare said, there is nothing new under the sun, and in Hollywood that goes double. Mere weeks after Paul Blart: Mall Cop comes Observe and Report, with a doppelganger of a plot that begs the question – which came first, the chicken or the plagiarist? What this film lacks in originality, however, it makes up for in smarts. Unlike Paul Blart, this film is actually funny. Not always ha-ha funny. In fact, sometimes the comedy comes from a very dark place indeed.
At the Forest Ridge Mall in suburban middle America, Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) is Chief of Security. Ronnie harbours a secret crush on cosmetics girl Brandi (Anna Farris), and when she is the victim of a flasher, the arrival of Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) to investigate ignites Ronnie’s competitive streak and. determined to solve the case, he tries to join the police force. Writer-director Jody Hill takes this premise, which might easily go the way of the sitcom, and he pushes the boundaries of acceptable humour. Not in the gross-out humour of Judd Apatow, not in the use of foul language. In one scene, as Detective Harrison takes Ronnie for a ride-along while out on patrol. Harrison ditches Ronnie in a tough neighbourhood where he gets himself into a situation with a few drug dealers, and manages to turn the tables on them.
What Jody Hill does here, just as you are enjoying a few laughs, is to completely push the boundaries of violence as a comedic tool. He has you question yourself for laughing as you realise that Ronnie isn’t a harmless goofball, he is in fact dangerously mentally unstable. Here is a comedy with unexpected weight, and those who go along expecting Seth Rogen to play yet another variation on the same character he’s been playing forever will be surprised.
CK
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