By Matt Brunson
OBSERVE AND REPORT
DIRECTED BY Jody Hill
STARS Seth Rogen, Anna Faris
Observe and Report, N.C. writer-director Jody Hill's sophomore effort following the no-budget, no-laughs farce The Foot Fist Way, valiantly tries to combine the twisted trappings of a black comedy with the more accepted slapstick shenanigans of a mainstream outing. It's extremely difficult to synchronize these approaches into one fluid viewing experience Terry Zwigoff largely pulled it off with Bad Santa, but Hill never locates the proper balance that would make this more than just a hit-and-miss curio.
Seth Rogen, no stranger to controversial comedies, stars as Paul Blart excuse me, Ronnie Barnhardt, a schlub who takes great pride in his work as the head of security at a popular mall. Unlike the congenial Blart, however, Ronnie is a disturbed individual, required to remain on his medication lest his destructive tendencies and delusions of grandeur take over. But Ronnie is largely oblivious to his own inner demons he's too busy lusting after a makeup counter tart (Anna Faris), cluelessly overlooking a sweet fast-food employee (Collette Wolfe), attempting to apprehend a flasher who's been terrorizing the mall, and engaging in a war of words with a real detective (Ray Liotta).
Much of Observe and Report is aimless and lackadaisical a whole burglary subplot could easily have been dropped without affecting the overall product yet the script's biggest problem rests with its decidedly non-PC content. There's nothing wrong with ruffling a few feathers here and there a little vulgarity is good for the soul, as Mel Brooks used to prove on a regular basis but the material needs to be funny as well as potentially shocking, and almost none of the film's targets alcoholism, racial profiling, date rape, etc. elicit much in the way of laughs. The exception is the rampant male nudity seen during the bloody climax; I won't ruin it here, but let's just say this might mark the only time that a movie manages to go limp and out with a bang at the same time.