..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Observe and Report
Directed by Jody Hill

This oddball show, in which Seth Rogen gets fat and psycho-nasty, and Ray Liotta and Anna Faris respectively play his tough cop and trashy babe nemeses, is, no kidding, the Taxi Driver of mall cop comedies, as writer-director Jody Hill has already confessed was his intention. And that’s a title it will never lose.
    
But if Travis Bickle and Paul Blart seem an odd mix, be advised that Hill and company never completely work out all the kinks in his concept. Rogen plays Ronnie Barnhardt, a rotund Dirty Harry-wannabe who dreams of being Eastwood or De Niro, but still lives at home with his mom (Celia Weston), an amiable souse who claims she slept with most of his high school friends, and probably did. Meanwhile, his mall is being terrorized by a fat flasher who keeps whipping it out at convenient moments, and burglars who keep looting the place. It’s a Ronnie sort of job, but somehow the PD sends over Detective Harrison (Liotta) who thinks Ronnie is a doofus.
    
The movie is pretty funny all the way through-- and Faris, as a mean little makeup shop slut named Brandi is hilarious -- but it also leaves a bad taste in your mouth. (To be honest so did Paul Blart.) Having your comedy hero be an actual semi-psychotic on a macho trip and vengeance kick is a daring move (though it smacks of Adam Sandler), and so are the pathological depths to which some these characters sink. Cinematically, it’s just okay.
    
Observe and Report is certainly a better movie than the hit Paul Blart -- not a hard contest to win. But in some ways, they aren’t all that different: gross-out comedy vehicles for star comics about cop fantasies that turn weirdly real. I thought it would have been funnier if Ronnie wound up in a straitjacket or got framed as the flasher, and then exonerated in a penis lineup.

Seriously though, enough is enough with this trend. I don’t want to see another mall cop comedy, because the possibilities get scary. What if we get one starring Blimp Rushbomb aka Rush Limbaugh, with Bill “Riled Up Riles” O’Reilly is the tough cop, and Glenn “The Wreck” Beck as the flasher? Basta!

-by Michael Wilmington

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