OBSERVE & REPORT

“OBSERVE & REPORT” (Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta & Anna Faris)

We drove to a theatre & decided we’d make our decision based upon what was playing next – since ‘Adventureland’ wasn’t going to start for 5 hours, ‘Observe & Report’ won out over ’17 Again’.
I can’t say that I liked ‘O & R’, but neither did I dislike it – It was a unique film in that it couldn’t make up its mind as to what it wanted to be – A dark, disturbing black comedy, or a silly, Adam Sandler-ish style dumb comedy without laughs. & there were no lines blurred between the two – it was either one or the other from scene to scene, which in the end made it a piece of crap, really – but like I said, a ‘unique’ piece of crap. I wished they had gone with the dark comedy because that was clearly the most interesting aspect of the film, whereas the dumbed down (Or as the film itself would call them ‘retarded’) scenes just didn’t work at all.
Rogen plays Paul Blart:Mall Cop, who dreams of becoming a ‘real life’ cop. So when Ray Liotta’s detective comes to the mall to investigate the appearance of a perverted flasher that has been molesting women in the parking lot, Blart is literally looking over his shoulder ‘observing’ how an actually police detective conducts an investigation. &, being the egomaniac that he is, Paul constantly questions the detective’s techniques. A potentially interesting plot is created between the two ‘protectors’ of the citizenry, but instead of keeping it taut & edgy, the climactic scene culminates in a stupid mall cop vrs. the entire police force fight scene that is just plain idiotic.
Anna Faris is the ‘pretty & she knows it’ girl that works the cosmetics counter that Blart is infatuated with... I used to like Anna, but last being seen in ‘House Bunny’ & now this; she’s quickly losing her appeal. There’s some nice scenes involving Paul & the shy religious girl that works at the coffee shop, but that possibly interesting angle deteriorates into a bland, predictable finale.
Michael Pena (excellent in ‘Crash’) shows some range playing Blart’s 2nd in command, but just as his character steps into the spotlight, he disappears.
The relationship between Paul & his alcoholic mother showed promise - & if they’d stuck with the ‘feel’ of those scenes throughout the entire movie, they would have had a much better film on their hands – but there isn’t enough of ‘mom’ & way too many scenes of Blart moving in slow motion with his three chins flopping up and down in ripples in some lame attempt to make the chubby mall cop look ‘macho’. Again, this film didn’t have a clue as to what it wanted to be so it was all over the place. Okay, so maybe the several scenes of fat guys (one nude) running endlessly through a mall was ‘supposed’ to be a parody of the genre, but Simon Pegg already wrung all the comedic moments out of that dishrag in “Hot Fuzz”.
But this Paul Blart, unlike the Kevin James’ version, isn’t very likeable – In fact he’s a complete jerk. One wonders of the screenwriter actually ‘wrote’ the dialogue between Blart & an Eastern Indian mall employee, or if the two actors decided to ‘improvise’ saying the words ‘F- You’ to one another a dozen or so times & the director thought that made ‘celluloid magic’ & he kept it in... He couldn’t have been more wrong. It took a long time for me to come around & start finding things to like about ‘O & R’ because that scene (Which I’m sure many 4-6 year olds found hilarious) was so off-putting.
There was a potential good movie here, but it fails due to misguided direction. They should have kept it ‘dark’ throughout & discarded all of the slapstick & ‘look how tough the tubby mall cop is’ scenes. But they didn’t, so it’s a mess.