Many people think Seth Rogan is a one-trick pony with his raunchy style of comedy and pot humor. With the kind of money that one trick has brought into the box office, you would think Rogan would continue to exhaust it until he reached a Will Ferrall-like persona. However, Rogan appears to have some other pitches in his repertoire. He attempted a pseudo dark comedy with Pineapple Express but with Observe and Report, Rogan has gone full-fledged Cable Guy. Don’t worry; it’s in a good way.
Rogan plays Ronnie Barnhardt, a bi-polar mall cop . . . um excuse me, Head of Mall Security, that is trying to capture the attention of the beautiful and vapid makeup counter girl Brandi, played by Anna Faris. Ronnie figures the best way to do this is to capture the flasher that has been terrorizing mall patrons in the parking lot and solidify his hero status. Along his mission though, Ronnie finds out that he may want more out of life than just his mall-world job.
This is a very polarizing film; the writing can be taken as a complete irreverent mess, or poetic genius. I’m leaning more towards the latter, as it appears the writers were trying to achieve a parallel tone with the main character’s medical condition. However for that to work, the actors’ performances must be stellar. This is one of those rare opportunities that really showcase great comedic acting because the dialogue is not very funny at all. There are one or two very good lines that will make you laugh out loud, but for the most part it’s the inflections of voice and subtleness of expressions that make these characters intriguing and funny.
Now aside from the artsy humor, the main vein of the film is a ton of great physical comedy that uses a huge dose of shock treatment to keep the blood pumping. It’s hard to shock today’s audiences, but this film achieves it in several instances, especially the climax. I swear you’ll never see it coming.
As far as the individual performances go, you’ll get the usual contemptuous Rogan but this time you can see the difference between Ronnie Barnhardt and Rogan’s previous characters. Anna Farris’ usual dim-witted blonde routine is more pathetically tragic than bubbly and funny in this film, which I’m sure was the intention. And the secondary characters are all very well rounded with just the right amount of awkwardness to keep the films tempo.
Observe and Report is not the greatest comedy ever, in fact I’m sure it’s not even in the top 100 all time. However it is worth viewing to see Seth Rogan in a skewed and darker performance than usual, plus you get a fight scene with Ray Liotta. Isn’t that worth the price of admission alone?
Story: 6.0
Acting: 8.5
Writing: 8.0
Captivation: 6.5
Replay Value: 6.5
Total = 7.1
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