Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009
"Observe and Report"
Every once in awhile, two big movies come out in the same year that deal with the same subject matter - just look back to 1998. In `98, "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" both smashed into theaters during the summer. "Armageddon" was the big budget action film, where the guys save the day and all is well in the world. "Deep Impact" was the drama handling the ramifications of a catastrophic event on normal people as the waves crash into the shores, killing millions. Sometimes, these movies that seem similar are actually polar opposites. We call this the Tao effect. This is the position, "Observe and Report" is in - it is the yang in this scenario. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," a silly comedy with a good natured screw-up as the hero, is the ying in this analogy. "Paul Blart" is lighthearted and the characters are essentially very good guys and the bad guys are your typical bad guys. "Observe and Report" is dark and all the characters are duplicitous to the point of unlikable. The director, Jody Hill, has said he was going for, "a comedic version of 'Taxi Driver'". He got it half right. The tone is menacing and brutal. He just forgot to include enough comedy. There is some comedy, most of it coming from co-star Michael Pena and Seth Rogen's on-screen mom, Celia Weston. The relationship between Rogen's character - a bi-polar mall security guard - and Anna Faris, a makeup counter girl, is hilarious and sad. But there is far too much brooding in between the funny segments and far too much dead air. What Hill and Rogen tried to accomplish was an enviable feat, just one too many gunshots without any gut-busting laughs.