Observe and Report

A lot of the chatter about Observe and Report has centered on the fact that it is the second movie in a few months about a mall security guard, following the hit Paul Blart, Mall Cop. I haven't seen that film, but I feel like I have after seeing the commercial. The film that Observe and Report is really like, believe it or not, is Taxi Driver. The sad thing, though, is that Taxi Driver had more laughs.

Seth Rogen plays Ronnie, a simmering cauldron of rage who is employed at a generic mall. The idea that a shopping mall is a simulacrum of American society is pretty old by now, and has been addressed by directors as diverse as Paul Mazursky, Kevin Smith, and George Romero. The writer/director of this picture is Jody Hill, who was the director of The Foot Fist Way (unseen by me). After watching Observe and Report, I would think twice about meeting this guy.

The film begins with a pervert flashing women at the mall. He's even wearing a trench coat, like in old Playboy cartoons (do guys do this anymore?). Rogen is obsessed with catching him, particularly after his fantasy girl, an obnoxious cosmetic-counter girl played charmlessly by Anna Faris, is flashed. Rogen resents the police presence, in the person of a detective played by Ray Liotta.

Right away I felt like slinking out of the theater. First of all, it's not clear why the mall manager wouldn't have fired Rogen a long time ago, especially after he interferes with a police investigation. Secondly, Rogen's character is like nails on a blackboard, you just want him to go away. I think we're supposed to root for him, but I spent the film wanting him to be locked away and violated, repeatedly.

Rogen tries to join the police academy, fails the psychological exam, and manages to get a date with Faris, proving his love by kissing her after vomiting. The section of the film that deals with their date is particularly shrill, and doesn't do Faris any favors. Things continue to get worse for him to the point where he is hauled out of the mall by an entire squadron of cops who beat him senseless. But by the film's end, just like Travis Bickle, he acquits himself as a hero.

I didn't find this film funny at all. Most of it is deadpan obnoxiousness, as if Hill is trying to tell us he's above it all. He hates his characters, so why should we like them? The only characters I liked are Liotta, who seems to be on loan from a better movie, an actress named Collette Wolfe, who plays a coffee vendor )and "born-again virgin") who inexplicably likes Rogen, though he's too stupid to realize it, and Celia Weston, who has the film's few funny lines as his perpetually drunk mom (she makes a big life decision by deciding to stick only to beer).

The definitive scene in this film is when Rogen and his partner, Michael Pena, go medieval on some kids skateboarding in the mall parking lot. I was slack-jawed while watching this--I guess it was supposed to be funny, and if so I despair. Do people really think it's funny for kids to be bashed in the head by skateboards? I don't get it.

Are mall-cop movies the genre of the moment? A few weeks ago I was in a mall and saw a guard riding on a Segway. I couldn't help but inwardly snicker. I'm afraid it's going to be difficult for these poor slobs to do that anymore without being figures of mockery.