![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Review -- Observe and Report
Observe and Report (2009)
Director: Jody Hill
Starring: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Anna Faris
Canadian Rating: 18A
2.5 stars out of 4 (Respectable)
By Albert Tam
What do you get when you combine Paul Blart and Travis Bickle together? You get Ronnie Barnhardt, head of mall security.
Seth Rogen is Barnhardt, a manic depressive single male who lives with his alcoholic mother and spends his days serving and protecting the people of his mall. His story is pretty standard: he likes a girl at the makeup counter (Anna Faris) and has plenty of slacker co-workers who don’t do much – but things get out of hand when a flasher shows up in the parking lots assaulting the customers and eventually, the girl he likes is a victim too. As he attempts to track down the culprit, Barnhardt drops his meds and veers and teeters to the edge of insanity and we get scenes of gratuitous violence, language, and sex.
If you haven’t guessed already, Observe and Report does not contain the fluffiness and playfulness of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Instead, it is a very dark comedy filled with unexpected turns and outrageous events, so much to the extent that its oddball sensibilities wind up making the picture into both a strange social commentary and a laugh-out loud comedy. It succeeds in the latter very much so but the former is too convoluted and demented to make noteworthy. After the movie was finished, I didn’t know what to think. I was disgusted, amused, and pensive. I’m still feeling all three right now.
Where the film truly succeeds is in the performances: Seth Rogen’s turn here isn’t just another loveable loser, it’s strikingly different and much darker than anything he’s ever done and I think it’s one of the best performances of his career after Knocked Up. Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, and the coffee girl played by Collette Wolf are also on the mark but the real scene stealer is Celia Weston as Barnhardt’s alcoholic mother which makes me wonder why this woman doesn’t make more of these funny pictures.
But then we hit minute 60 and suddenly the movie veers into strange territory and picks up and tosses around so many subplots that we don’t even know where we’re at. The latter third is marked by scenes of violence, drug use, illogical plotting and by the time the credits role, we’re not quite sure what we saw. Is Observe and Report really a comedy? The first hour certainly is. But the ending makes me want to think otherwise.
This is not an easy picture to watch. In fact, it’s rather disgusting and insulting in more ways than I can imagine but there’s a strange charm to Rogen, Faris, Wolf, and Liotta. And while uttering Observe and Report and Taxi Driver in the same sentence would be wrong of me, I’m going to do it anyway because I'm certain would be right up Bickle’s alley.
Director: Jody Hill
Starring: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Anna Faris
Canadian Rating: 18A
2.5 stars out of 4 (Respectable)
By Albert Tam
What do you get when you combine Paul Blart and Travis Bickle together? You get Ronnie Barnhardt, head of mall security.
Seth Rogen is Barnhardt, a manic depressive single male who lives with his alcoholic mother and spends his days serving and protecting the people of his mall. His story is pretty standard: he likes a girl at the makeup counter (Anna Faris) and has plenty of slacker co-workers who don’t do much – but things get out of hand when a flasher shows up in the parking lots assaulting the customers and eventually, the girl he likes is a victim too. As he attempts to track down the culprit, Barnhardt drops his meds and veers and teeters to the edge of insanity and we get scenes of gratuitous violence, language, and sex.
If you haven’t guessed already, Observe and Report does not contain the fluffiness and playfulness of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Instead, it is a very dark comedy filled with unexpected turns and outrageous events, so much to the extent that its oddball sensibilities wind up making the picture into both a strange social commentary and a laugh-out loud comedy. It succeeds in the latter very much so but the former is too convoluted and demented to make noteworthy. After the movie was finished, I didn’t know what to think. I was disgusted, amused, and pensive. I’m still feeling all three right now.
Where the film truly succeeds is in the performances: Seth Rogen’s turn here isn’t just another loveable loser, it’s strikingly different and much darker than anything he’s ever done and I think it’s one of the best performances of his career after Knocked Up. Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, and the coffee girl played by Collette Wolf are also on the mark but the real scene stealer is Celia Weston as Barnhardt’s alcoholic mother which makes me wonder why this woman doesn’t make more of these funny pictures.
But then we hit minute 60 and suddenly the movie veers into strange territory and picks up and tosses around so many subplots that we don’t even know where we’re at. The latter third is marked by scenes of violence, drug use, illogical plotting and by the time the credits role, we’re not quite sure what we saw. Is Observe and Report really a comedy? The first hour certainly is. But the ending makes me want to think otherwise.
This is not an easy picture to watch. In fact, it’s rather disgusting and insulting in more ways than I can imagine but there’s a strange charm to Rogen, Faris, Wolf, and Liotta. And while uttering Observe and Report and Taxi Driver in the same sentence would be wrong of me, I’m going to do it anyway because I'm certain would be right up Bickle’s alley.
Comments