Observe and Report writer Jody Hill loves bad guys. I don’t say that because Kenny Powers let Stevie Janowski take the fall for his car wreck in Eastbound and Down or because Fred Simmons was an ass-kicking yet inept karate instructor in The Foot Fist Way. "I like to write about bad guys more because they’re cool," he shrugged at the South by Southwest screening of his newest flick, Observe and Report. "They’re a lot more interesting, so I take bad guys and make them good guys.”
Hill spared no evil or endearing quality when he created the occasionally insane group of characters in Observe and Report. Mall cop Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) has lost touch with reality--a major character flaw that Hill loves to instill in his main characters. You’ll spend most of the movie incredulous to what Ronnie is doing and saying, but you can’t help but hope he figures out and gets his act together. It’s how impossibly close Hill’s characters come to nearly redeeming themselves before collapsing in a glorious, hilarious fashion that makes us keep watching.
However, that tale can only be told so many times in a given seating, which is where Observe misses its mark. The characters are well-developed, and the actors obviously grabbed their roles and ran with them, but there just wasn’t enough to keep the story moving. It was a series of side plots lumped together that happened to cluster around a central tale, which is quite flimsy when the final payoff is revealed. The movie is uproariously funny at certain points and held my interest, but I had trouble grasping what was the point of the movie. Twice I had to look at my watch because I wasn’t sure if there were 20 minutes left or a whole 'nother hour.
The story starts with Ronnie wanting to prove himself to those who doubted him by catching a flasher who keeps returning to his mall. Surly Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) is called in to assist in the investigation, much to the chagrin of Ronnie, who rallies his crack security squad of the Yuan twins and Michael Pena to help him solve the case. Meanwhile Ronnie lusts after mall makeup clerk Brandi (Anna Farris), who wants nothing to do with him, and ignores the girl who gives him coffee everyday, (Collette Wolfe) who would do anything for him. Ronnie struggles with being bipolar and the lack of respect he commands before the film comes to a head with the loss of his job.
Contrary to this review, I really enjoyed this movie. The characters are incredibly engaging, and after spending time working in a mall myself, I started to see some frightening similarities to people I was friends with. Michael Pena delivers the performance of a lifetime as the lisping sidekick. Unlike past roles where she tried desperately to win the audience over, Anna Farris was allowed to be mean and dirty because there was no caring for Brandi. Look her most hilarious scene, which is spoiled in the red band trailer, where she and Ronnie have drunken (albeit it not wild and crazy) sex.
I expect this film to find a second life on DVD, when people who were unwilling to pay $10 to see it in theaters get their hands on it, but this isn’t your typical frat boy comedy so don’t expect the cheap laughs — this is a thinking man’s comedy.
--Mark Collins
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