Robin PottratzMovie Review: "Observe and Report" is both insanely funny and just insane ** 1/2 out of 4
April 19th 2009 22:40
When I left the theatre after seeing the latest Seth Rogen vehicle Observe and Report I wasn't sure what I was feeling. Yes, I laughed a lot during the film...but part of me felt bad about what I laughed at. The subject matter in Observe and Report goes beyond dark...it is flat out wrong. I shouldn't have laughed at an alcoholic mother, gang bangers being brutally beaten, a security guard shooting up heroin in a bathroom, two grown men pummeling teenage skateboarders and a scene of date rape...but I did...and I laughed hard.
Laughing at Observe and Report is sort of like laughing at a funeral...the subject matter really isn't funny, but the more you try to remind yourself of that...the more you want to laugh.
Seth Rogen stars as Ronnie Barnhardt, the delusional, bi-polar head of security at the Forest Ridge Mall. Ronnie prowls the mall like a rottweiler and Rogen, shorn of his lovable jewfro makes Ronnie a believable nutso bad ass. Ronnie pines over Brandi (Anna Faris at her slutty and bitchy best) the makeup counter girl who can't stand him. He also has a task force, led by latino guard Dennis (Michael Pena, complete with top gun shades and a pornstar wig), the Yuen twins (Matt and John Yuan, given little more than asian stereotypes), and new kid Charles (Jesse Plemons). He also goes home to an alcoholic mother (a hilarious Celia Weston) who attempts to give Ronnie words of encouragement and pearls of wisdom...before she passes out nightly.
Events heat up when a flasher, decides he can show his wang to the female customers in the mall...including Brandi...which sets off Ronnie, who makes catching the flasher his mission until the Bad ass Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta in full Goodfellas tough guy mode) shows up to steal Ronnie's thunder. Ronnie and Harrison despise each other especially because Ronnie hopes to be a cop someday.
On a ride along, Harrison throws Ronnie to a bunch of gang-bangers, and Ronnie brutally beats them with a flashlight...which lets us all know how crazy Ronnie truly is. At about the scene of the beatdown...Director Jody Hill lets Observe and Report run right off the rails.
After Ronnie returns from the beatdown, Ronnie unknowingly date rapes Brandi, has to deal with a burglar within his own team, beats down a food vendor for making fun of a girl with a broken leg, and gets into a brutal fight with the entire police force when he won't leave the mall.
Observe and Report flies right off of the crazy cliff and screams all the way down...however some things remain consistent. Most notably the actors. Anna Faris is a bit underused as Brandi. Brandi is not a bitch with a heart of gold...she is just a bitch who doesn't show any interest in Ronnie until she finds out that he takes and is holding prescription drugs...and after Ronnie foolishly declares his love to her...she bangs Detective Harrison in the backseat of her car. Faris is not afraid to make Brandi detestable, and that is why she is so funny and valuable in this testosterone filled crazy factory.
Liotta doesn't really go for laughs...which works perfectly for the role of Harrison, and Michael Pena, far from the dramatic turns in World Trade Center and Crash has a blast as Dennis, Ronnie's lisp voiced second in command, even the cameos are solid...Danny McBride (Director Jody Hill's North Carolina buddy) is hilarious as the leader of the gang-bangers that feel Ronnie's wrath and Another Hill buddy Randy Gambill as the flasher will have you in stitches during his seemingly endless slow motion nude chase scene through the mall.
The two strangest performances come from Collette Wolfe as Nell, the girl with the broken leg who has feelings for Ronnie even though he doesn't see it. It is unbelievable that a girl that nice would be interested in a psycho like Ronnie, but Wolfe comes from the heart and it shows.
The other comes from Celia Weston. An alcoholic mother shouldn't be a sympathetic, funny, and heartfelt character...but Weston makes it happen. When she gives Ronnie heart to hearts, it is hilariously wrong and also wrongly touching. Weston and Wolfe do their best to make sure that Observe and Report have some semblance of a pulse.
Above all, this movie belongs to Seth Rogen. He is psychotically hilarious as Ronnie. When Jody Hill goes too far (which he does to a spectacular degree) Rogen keeps you in thrall. He plays Ronnie like the illegitimate spawn of Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle and never plays Ronnie for parody...just for deadpan and creepy laughs...Rogen is beginning to grow as an actor and this may have been a perfectly cast role for him.
There were a lot of things that I genuinely liked about Observe and Report but I felt so hollow about liking them. Like I stated earlier, the subject matter is not funny at all, but I give credit to Rogen and Jody Hill for being willing to go anywhere for a laugh. Its hard to fault them for that, but I think that they may have bitten off more than they could chew and they didn't know how to handle it, given the insane second half of the film.
However, I did laugh a great deal at Observe and Report and I guess that was the point...right?
Laughing at Observe and Report is sort of like laughing at a funeral...the subject matter really isn't funny, but the more you try to remind yourself of that...the more you want to laugh.
Seth Rogen stars as Ronnie Barnhardt, the delusional, bi-polar head of security at the Forest Ridge Mall. Ronnie prowls the mall like a rottweiler and Rogen, shorn of his lovable jewfro makes Ronnie a believable nutso bad ass. Ronnie pines over Brandi (Anna Faris at her slutty and bitchy best) the makeup counter girl who can't stand him. He also has a task force, led by latino guard Dennis (Michael Pena, complete with top gun shades and a pornstar wig), the Yuen twins (Matt and John Yuan, given little more than asian stereotypes), and new kid Charles (Jesse Plemons). He also goes home to an alcoholic mother (a hilarious Celia Weston) who attempts to give Ronnie words of encouragement and pearls of wisdom...before she passes out nightly.
Seth Rogen comforts Anna Faris in darkly funny "Observe and Report"
Events heat up when a flasher, decides he can show his wang to the female customers in the mall...including Brandi...which sets off Ronnie, who makes catching the flasher his mission until the Bad ass Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta in full Goodfellas tough guy mode) shows up to steal Ronnie's thunder. Ronnie and Harrison despise each other especially because Ronnie hopes to be a cop someday.
On a ride along, Harrison throws Ronnie to a bunch of gang-bangers, and Ronnie brutally beats them with a flashlight...which lets us all know how crazy Ronnie truly is. At about the scene of the beatdown...Director Jody Hill lets Observe and Report run right off the rails.
After Ronnie returns from the beatdown, Ronnie unknowingly date rapes Brandi, has to deal with a burglar within his own team, beats down a food vendor for making fun of a girl with a broken leg, and gets into a brutal fight with the entire police force when he won't leave the mall.
Observe and Report flies right off of the crazy cliff and screams all the way down...however some things remain consistent. Most notably the actors. Anna Faris is a bit underused as Brandi. Brandi is not a bitch with a heart of gold...she is just a bitch who doesn't show any interest in Ronnie until she finds out that he takes and is holding prescription drugs...and after Ronnie foolishly declares his love to her...she bangs Detective Harrison in the backseat of her car. Faris is not afraid to make Brandi detestable, and that is why she is so funny and valuable in this testosterone filled crazy factory.
Liotta doesn't really go for laughs...which works perfectly for the role of Harrison, and Michael Pena, far from the dramatic turns in World Trade Center and Crash has a blast as Dennis, Ronnie's lisp voiced second in command, even the cameos are solid...Danny McBride (Director Jody Hill's North Carolina buddy) is hilarious as the leader of the gang-bangers that feel Ronnie's wrath and Another Hill buddy Randy Gambill as the flasher will have you in stitches during his seemingly endless slow motion nude chase scene through the mall.
The two strangest performances come from Collette Wolfe as Nell, the girl with the broken leg who has feelings for Ronnie even though he doesn't see it. It is unbelievable that a girl that nice would be interested in a psycho like Ronnie, but Wolfe comes from the heart and it shows.
The other comes from Celia Weston. An alcoholic mother shouldn't be a sympathetic, funny, and heartfelt character...but Weston makes it happen. When she gives Ronnie heart to hearts, it is hilariously wrong and also wrongly touching. Weston and Wolfe do their best to make sure that Observe and Report have some semblance of a pulse.
Above all, this movie belongs to Seth Rogen. He is psychotically hilarious as Ronnie. When Jody Hill goes too far (which he does to a spectacular degree) Rogen keeps you in thrall. He plays Ronnie like the illegitimate spawn of Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle and never plays Ronnie for parody...just for deadpan and creepy laughs...Rogen is beginning to grow as an actor and this may have been a perfectly cast role for him.
There were a lot of things that I genuinely liked about Observe and Report but I felt so hollow about liking them. Like I stated earlier, the subject matter is not funny at all, but I give credit to Rogen and Jody Hill for being willing to go anywhere for a laugh. Its hard to fault them for that, but I think that they may have bitten off more than they could chew and they didn't know how to handle it, given the insane second half of the film.
However, I did laugh a great deal at Observe and Report and I guess that was the point...right?
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