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Director: Jody Hill Starring: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Anna Faris, Michael Peņa Seth Rogen plays a mall cop who takes his job far too seriously. When he fails to catch a flasher, he sets his sights on some very lofty (and humorous) goals. The movie was definitely funny, but the surprise here was Seth Rogen stepping out of his usual comedic shoes. There's some darker stuff in this one, it's not just pot jokes and Rogen calling people inventive names. The narrative also seemed to get sidetracked pretty easily, but most of the tangents had some memorable moments and some laughs. All in all, a loosely wrapped, but funny package. If you're a big Seth Rogen fan or you want to see him do something a little different, go for it. Folks who are looking for a straight comedy movie without the twist, or people who aren't fond of Rogen would do well to avoid this one.
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Apr 13, 2009 08:27
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:44 |
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Observe and Report is receiving a lot of press, and a lot of controversy. Perhaps some of this is warranted: it's a "dark comedy," it's violent, and yes, there is a date rape scene. If such things don't seem ripe for comedy for you, you won't like this movie; it revels in its own seediness and doesn't apologize. Though, contrary to what the offend-able might say, its seediness and its "darkness" are not the problem. If you're like me, you'll leave the theater thoroughly entertained by a handful of darkly funny moments, but mildly dissatisfied by a story that's still very uneven. Here's what the film does right: it doesn't pull punches. The film saddles you with a flawed, violent, delusional character, and it doesn't cheat. Jody Hill expertly clashes the absurdity of Ronnie's (Seth Rogen) self-importance against the benign irrelevance of his life. Yet, unlike Paul Blart: Mall Cop or other movies that'd seek laughs from slapstick bumbling, Observe and Report derives comedy from the histrionic drama inside the hero's mind. Playing on genre convention from psychological dramas and crime films, this film trumps up the emotion, the violence...pretty much everything...and the sheer excess somehow becomes hilarious. Though referential to other films, the purity of its lunacy and the unexpected extremes it goes to keep it unique. However, the handful of deranged, hilarious moments are left somewhat adrift in a confused narrative. Speaking generally, the film seems to lack a direction or trajectory outside of a few key scenes. Following a very smart subplot detailing Ronnie's attempts to become a cop, the viewer's forced to deal with a long and mostly pointless digression between Ronnie and his coworker Dennis (Michael Peņa) that lacks closure or relevance. Similarly, the film is replete with a number of useless characters, like wheelchair-bound Nell (Collette Wolfe), who lack definition or importance outside of eliciting (unnecessary) information out of Ronnie or stretching out runtime. These aspects are not huge problems, but they do leave a general sense that the film struggled to fill out its already-scant 86 minute runtime, and could have used more time in development to flesh out its stellar moments at the expense of sloppy ones. That being said, Observe and Report is still an extremely clever comedy. The funny moments are extremely funny, and the performances pretty perfectly capture the mock-seriousness that makes the entire thing work. Above all, the film ends in one of the best chase scenes in recent memory, and one that will forever reclaim "Where is my Mind?" from Fight Club. I give it a 4/5, perhaps higher than it deserves, for its total audacity. Xealot fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Apr 13, 2009 |
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Apr 13, 2009 12:15
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