Observe and Report
On the surface, writer-director Jody Hill’s follow-up to last year’s “The Foot Fist Way”- which introduced brave audiences to Danny McBride- seems in line with the recent brand of comedy that includes “Pineapple Express,” “Superbad,” and most anything produced by Judd Apatow. But once you dig deeper, this is one f-ed up movie.
One thing some friends of mine and I talk about often at work is just throwing out surreal ideas for films, not that we’d ever want to see them happen; they just get riffed on and developed as mere theories. A few years ago there was a rumor of a possible sequel to “Taxi Driver.” Suffice it to say, it didn’t last long, but it didn’t stop us from theorizing on the idea, leading to this brilliant one-line pitch- a revenge thriller with a “Barbershop 2” twist.
In a way, I can’t help but think Hill may have been listening in on those riffs, ’cause his “Observe and Report”- one of the bravest and most surreal comedies in years- takes aspects of that pitch, and makes an uncompromising comedy centered around some of the most unsympathetic characters in recent memory. That doesn’t stop the film from being funny as Hell- it is.
Seth Rogen is wickedly scary- and scarily funny- as Ronnie Barnhardt, the head of mall security at Conway Mall who wields his power with an iron fist with a pair of Asian twins and a right hand man Dennis (Michael Pena, in a remarkably twisted comic turn by this terrific dramatic actor) who blindly follow his every whim. That’s a scary thought, especially when a flabby flasher starts flashing his wang at females in the parking lot. But it’s when the blonde hottie at the cosmetics table (Anna Faris) whom Ronnie has a diluted chubby for when Ronnie hits a cross-roads, and when his psychotic side really comes out.
Hill has some unnerving ideas in this anti-“Paul Blart” comedy. It doesn’t all land as comedy- though both Rogen and Faris are wicked comic gold, how their “date” ends is more unsettling than hilarious- but when Hill and Rogen take aim at Ronnie’s dreams of being a legit cop, and setup a standoff between Ronnie and blowhard Detective Harrison (a lively Ray Liotta), the film gets to its’ twisted heart of darkness. The result is satisfying on movie terms, even if in the real world, we’d undoubtedly have the right to be scared shitless. But that’s what makes Hill’s brand of humor work- at their heart, even his most deranged protagonist is a Hollywood romantic.
