Ronnie Barnhardt's mother tries to be friendly, but she does not quite know how. After all, she's drunk most of her days. "You may not be the smartest person in the world," she says, "but you're handsome. From certain angles."
But still, she loves her son, and he loves her. In this relationship exists the profiles of self-delusion and dysfunction: Offer up weird stuff, deliver it with dark, twisted, subversive glee, but make sure everybody has their heart in the right place.
Ronnie played by Seth Rogen is going through a rough patch in life. He was the head of mall security until a flasher set off a chain of events that left him bloody and bruised in body and spirit.
Observe and Report, interestingly, is the second film about a mall cop in three months. The first was Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which sold itself with the comical image of Kevin James on a Segway.
Observe and Report Movie Review
Make no mistake: Observe and Report is no Paul Blart. It is not a sequel in any way, shape or form. It is rated R for frontal male nudity, drug use, sexual content, violence and language, including a scene where adversaries bat expletives back and forth dozens of times.
The movie opens with the mall snapshots we all know, giddy teens with shopping bags, misbehaving children and scolding parents, speed walkers doing laps in sweats, food court patrons -- and one we don't. That would be a pervert in a raincoat in the parking lot.
When police Detective Harrison played by Ray Liotta is summoned, a turf war breaks out between him and Ronnie, who has aspirations of becoming a cop and is trying to woo a slutty makeup saleswoman named Brandi played by Anna Faris.
Rogen Observe and Report
Observe and Report is sophomoric yet amusing until it begins its descent into Taxi Driver territory. Then it's disquieting and disturbing, and the minuscule measure of good will it accumulated drains away.
Writer-director Jody Hill also made Foot Fist Way, about a tae kwon do instructor played by Danny McBride, who here has a cameo as a crack dealer. Hill goes for the down-and-dirty laughs involving rage, humiliation, booze, vomiting, Tasers, heads being thumped against commercial ovens or wooden stools or concrete floors, and slugfests.
Rogen, clean shaven and with closely shorn hair, looks little like his characters in recent movies or even like the svelte actor today. He and his oddball band of security guards, including identical twins, make for fine underdogs, but Hill's brand of humor eludes mainstream audiences.
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