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Observe and Report

 
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Observe and Report

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  • Director: Jody Hill
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstar
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Movie Type: Farce, Black Comedy
  • Themes: Arrested Adolescence, Mental Breakdown, Existential Crisis
  • Main Cast: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Peña, Anna Faris, Dan Bakkedahl
  • Release Year: 2009
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 86 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: R

Plot

The Foot Fist Way director Jody Hill takes the helm for this Seth Rogen comedy concerning an ambitious mall cop who competes with a seasoned detective to bust an elusive flasher. Make a wrong move at Forest Ridge Mall, and you'll have to answer to no-nonsense security head Ronnie Barnhardt (Rogen). Ronnie sees skateboarders as the blight of society, and any shoplifter unfortunate enough to summon his wrath will be promptly busted and booked. Sure, Ronnie may suffer delusions of grandeur when it comes to his job, but perhaps with a little effort he'll eventually get to trade in his flashlight and patch for a gun and a badge. When a flasher begins tormenting the shoppers at Forest Ridge Mall, Ronnie seizes the opportunity to showcase his detective skills and impress gorgeous makeup counter girl Brandi (Anna Faris), who can't be bothered to give him a second glance. Perhaps by catching the culprit, Ronnie will finally earn himself a prized position over at the police academy. But the one thing Ronnie hadn't counted on was competition, and when Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) of the Conway Police makes it his personal mission to nab the flasher, the two rivals begin working around the clock to crack the case before their counterpart. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Review

The mall cop comedy Observe and Report combines goofball shenanigans with a torrid loathing for humanity (and with many, many savage beatings). This weird amalgamation definitely has an upside, because it's probably something you've never seen before. But it also has a downside: namely that it's a little bit schizophrenic, and that all the shameless, full-frontal grossness (not to mention actual, full-frontal male nudity) can be really jarring, especially for viewers who go in expecting a potty-mouthed version of Paul Blart.

Of course, making you uncomfortable is kind of the goal, so criticizing the movie for being disturbing is a murky issue at best. It stars Seth Rogen as Ronnie, a deluded mall security guard who spends his days hassling loiterers like he's sniffing out suicide bombers in Fallujah, and his nights watching TV with his very drunk mom. Then, one fine morning, a flasher shows up in the parking lot, exposing himself to a number of women, including makeup-counter vixen Brandi (the always hilarious Anna Faris), whom Ronnie just happens to be in love with. This gives him the perfect chance to act blusteringly heroic (she gets flashed while getting out of her car, but Ronnie nonetheless sets up a perimeter of orange traffic cones around her chair in the department store, where she's describing her ordeal).

It's worth noting that the film takes a fair amount of time setting up this standard-issue "pompous but pathetic hero with delusions of grandeur" premise with all the standard-issue jokes that go with it. Cut to Ronnie ordering his subordinates around with over-the-top lingo out of movies like Commando and Delta Force; cut to slow-motion shots of the mall cop crew, squinting and posing in badass formations that emphasize their dorky self-importance; cut to Ronnie's bombastic antics constantly getting in the way of police detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), who highlights the hero's dumbassery by actually knowing what he's doing. It's all delivered creatively, but it also feels pretty familiar, like something we've seen a million times over except with Jack Black or some SNL alum in the starring role.

But fans of director Jody Hill's first film, The Foot Fist Way, know better than to expect things to stay conventional -- and they seriously don't. As Ronnie's mettle is increasingly tested, and he gets more and more chances to prove that he really is preternaturally talented at his chosen area of obsession (at one point taking down an army of police officers Bruce Lee-style, armed only with a nightstick and the brutal, meat-packing sound effects of human flesh getting pummeled with a blunt object), the story moves further and further from the template laid down by the genre. The jokes get darker (how unconscious does she have to be, exactly, for it to qualify as date rape?), and the narrative jumps all over the place, switching gears so frantically between stylized portrayals of "it's just a movie" logic and gritty depictions of "now we can't escape reasonable consequences" realism that you not only can't tell whether the hero will win out in the end, you really can't tell if he should.

Hill meticulously spends time getting you to root for Ronnie, only to incrementally yank the rug out from under you with revelations that he's crazy, racist, and kind of an asshole. Even though the film continues to frame Ronnie's character along the traditional lines of the flawed-but-loveable hero archetype (the effed-up Don Quixote), it also continues to cross the lines set down by that archetype. One minute, Ronnie is the blustering, saintly fool; the next, he maybe killed a guy. One minute, he's blissfully overconfident, the next, he's suffering the unsettling effects of what is clearly actual mental illness.

Again, this is all part of Hill's plan: he strives for cognitive dissonance, and he definitely gets it. He'll build up your tolerance for how much violence, nastiness, and tragedy you can laugh at, and then he'll throw in an epic shock, so you don't know for certain in the moment whether you're supposed to find it funny or terrible. You'll probably sense a little bit of both, and feel pretty disoriented. This particular state of mind is exactly the intended effect. You're supposed to laugh out loud at the hilarious awfulness of everything, you're supposed to be aghast at the shocking grotesquery of it all, and you're supposed to feel bewildered about the whole thing. Some movies strive to give you that warm, fuzzy feeling, and some strive to make you bawl your eyes out, but Observe and Report strives to make you feel ambivalent, confused, and a little bit dirty, and whether or not you find that enjoyable, it's not something you likely feel very often. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

Cast

Jesse Plemons - Charles; John Yuan - John Yuen; Matthew Yuan - Matt Yuen; Celia Weston - Mom; Collette Wolfe - Nell; Aziz Ansari - Saddamn; Randy Gambill - Pervert; Alston Brown - Bruce; Cody Midthunder - D-Rock; Debra-Jayne Brown - Female Reporter; Eddie Rouse Jr. - Angry Store Owner; Patton Oswalt - Toast A Bun Manager; Lauren Miller - Girl Employee; Danny R. McBride - Caucasian Crackhead; William Sterchi - Department Store Manager; Milos Milicevic - Random Crackhead

Credit

Masako Masuda - Art Director, Sheila Jaffe - Casting, Jo Edna Boldin - Casting, Gary Jones - Costume Designer, Milos Milicevic - First Assistant Director, Jody Hill - Director, Gary Hymes - Second Unit Director, Zene Baker - Editor, William Fay - Executive Producer, Marty P. Ewing - Executive Producer, Jon Jashni - Executive Producer, Andrew Haas - Executive Producer, Thomas Tull - Executive Producer, David Israel - Location Manager, Joseph Stephens - Composer (Music Score), Chris Spellman - Production Designer, Tim Orr - Cinematographer, Donald De Line - Producer, Robert Fechtman - Set Designer, Steve Mann - Sound Editor, Gary Hymes - Stunts Coordinator, Marty P. Ewing - Unit Production Manager, Jody Hill - Screenwriter, Michael Benson - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Todd Ulman - Post Production Supervisor, Rebecca Hilliard - Production Coordinator, Jonny Romano - Production Supervisor, Steve Pederson - Re-Recording Mixer, Terry Rodman - Re-Recording Mixer, Ivan Kraljevic - Second Assistant Director, Terry Rodman - Supervising Sound Editor, Bruce Ericksen - Costumes Supervisor, Helen Britten - Set Decorator, Zac Sneesby - Production Sound Mixer, Christopher Gebert - Production Sound Mixer, Pacific Title - Title Design, Kathleen Latlip - Assistant Editor

Similar Movies

The Foot Fist Way; Bad Santa
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Observe and Report

Promotional film poster
Directed by Jody Hill
Produced by Donald De Line
Written by Jody Hill
Starring Seth Rogen
Anna Faris
Michael Peña
Collette Wolfe
and Ray Liotta
Music by Joseph Stephens
Cinematography Tim Orr
Editing by Zene Baker
Studio Legendary Pictures
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) April 10, 2009
Running time 86 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $18,000,000
Gross revenue $24,881,177[1]

Observe and Report is a 2009 black comedy film written and directed by Jody Hill, starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and Ray Liotta.[2][3]

Contents

Plot

An anonymous flasher exposes himself to shoppers in the Forest Ridge Mall parking lot. The head of mall security, Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen), makes it his mission to apprehend the offender. He is assisted by Charles and Dennis, and the Yuen twins, in his efforts.

Ronnie's dream girl, Brandi (Anna Faris) who works a mall make-up counter, is flashed the next day, becoming distraught over the situation. Ronnie tries to comfort her until a police officer, Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), arrives and takes over Ronnie's palliative role. Ronnie feels threatened by this and is upset that his boss allowed an outside person to infringe on his search for the offender.

The criminal activity at the mall continues, as a masked person is seen robbing a shoe store, causing property damage. Detective Harrison is once again called in to investigate, his efforts hindered by Ronnie, who thinks that an Iraqi shopkeeper in the mall is the thief, based only on the fact that he is Iraqi. In response, Harrison curses out Ronnie during a meeting with Ronnie's superior, and Ronnie decides to take the steps necessary to become a real police officer.

As part of his preparations, Ronnie decides to ride along with Detective Harrison. Harrison, fed up with Ronnie, tricks him into walking into the most dangerous part of town, and drives off. Ronnie then confronts and subsequently subdues several drug dealers, victoriously returning to the police station with a dealer's son and thanking the detective for the opportunity to prove himself. Emboldened, Ronnie arranges a date with Brandi. On their date, Brandi consumes a large quantity of alcohol as well as several tablets of clonazepam which she took from Ronnie. Ronnie takes her home and sleeps with her while she is semi-unconscious.

Ronnie fails the psychological examination for the police officer job. Nell (Collette Wolfe), a friendly food court worker, explains to him that her boss Roger and another female employee make fun of Nell for having her leg in a cast, leading Ronnie to threaten the two after giving Roger a severe beating. Depressed, he is coerced by Dennis to spend the day doing a wide variety of drugs and assaulting skateboarding teenagers. At the end of the day, Ronnie finds out that Dennis was the shoe thief, and that he has been stealing from the mall for quite some time. Ronnie is stunned and, after a brief argument, is knocked unconscious from behind by Dennis, who then flees to Mexico.

Ronnie decides to go "undercover" in order to catch the flasher. At night he sees Harrison having sex with Brandi in his cruiser, and he confronts her in front of onlookers at the mall the next day, damaging mall property in the process. Ronnie refuses to leave the mall and police are called in. Ronnie fights off many officers before being beaten in a fist fight with Harrison.

After a brief time in jail, and once his wounds heal, Ronnie returns to the mall, although now no longer as a security guard. He is approached by Nell back on both legs, and she kisses him to console him. Interrupting their romantic moment, the pervert flashes Nell and Ronnie and runs off, exposing himself to many other mall patrons. Ronnie, pursuing the flasher in a slow-motion sequence that includes him punching the Iraqi clerk from previously in the face, retrieves a gun from a closet and shoots the flasher as he approaches Brandi to re-flash her. Though she thanks him, Ronnie rejects her for sleeping with Harrison.

Refusing the flasher an ambulance, Ronnie takes him to the police station, impressing and insulting the officers who had previously ridiculed him. A victorious Ronnie is then interviewed with the other security guards and he is accompanied by Nell, who is now his new girlfriend, and he returns back to his job as the head of mall security.

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location in the largely abandoned Winrock Shopping Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[4] Filming began around May 2008 and took place in Wilmington, NC.

At the request of the studio, during the test screening stage the filmmakers created a version that was more toned down, but that was scrapped as the scores for the new version were lower than the original's.[5]

Writing

Written and directed by Jody Hill. The megalomaniac, manic-depressive security guard Ronnie has been compared to Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver; Hill has mentioned it and also Scorsese's The King of Comedy as significant influences.[6][7]

According to an interview with Danny McBride on the set of Land of the Lost, he states that the role of Detective Harrison was originally written for him, but his prior commitment to other films as well as the potential SAG strike led to him instead taking a cameo role as Caucasian Crackhead with the role of Detective Harrison going to Ray Liotta.

Similarity to Paul Blart: Mall Cop

The film has drawn some attention for having a similar premise and protagonist to the 2009 film Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Seth Rogen, in an interview with GQ, noted his awareness of a similar movie being made:

“ We knew the whole time, actually. And we're friends with those guys, so we would literally send each other pictures of the wardrobe, just to make sure we weren't stepping on each other's toes. They're totally different movies.[8] ”

Early reviews have described Observe and Report as a more mature film than Paul Blart, even being dubbed "the dark mall cop movie".[9][10][11]

Reception

Critical reception

Critical reaction has been mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, Observe and Report has an overall approval rating from critics of 50% with an average score of 5.4/10.[12] By comparison, on Metacritic, the film has received an average score of 54, based on 34 reviews.[13] Based on 11 reviews, Yahoo! Movies critics gave the film a B-.[14]

Movies.com gave Observe and Report an A-, saying "Wrong to laugh... And yet..."[15] and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three stars out of four and said Observe and Report revels in creeping you out and making you laugh hard.

The sex scene between Rogen and Faris attracted criticism from various groups.[16] Referring to the moment where Ronnie Barnhardt is having sex with Faris's unresponsive character, Rogen said in an interview that "then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay," to which Antonia Zerbisias responded, arguing that "retroactive consent is not consent" and "there's no okay in rape".[17] Peter Travers argued in Rolling Stone that while the scene does constitute date rape, "the bipolar Ronnie is acting totally in character," and that "the movie isn't condoning Ronnie's actions," just dishing out the kind of laughs "that stick in your throat." [18]

During an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Seth Rogen stated he was disappointed by the film's overall reception but proud that "the only two people who liked it" were Stern and David Letterman.[19]

Box office

The film grossed $11,140,000 to open in fourth place in its first weekend of release, behind Hannah Montana: The Movie, Fast & Furious, and Monsters vs. Aliens (also featuring Seth Rogen). It averaged $4,085, playing in 2,727 theaters. To date it is the lowest-grossing film in which Seth Rogen plays a leading role, grossing $24,527,204 as of May 31, 2009[20].

Home video release

The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on September 22, 2009.

Soundtrack

Observe and Report: Original Soundtrack
Soundtrack by Various Artists
Released April 7, 2009
Genre Soundtrack
Label New Line Records

The soundtrack of Observe and Report was released on April 7, 2009.

  1. "When I Paint My Masterpiece" by The Band (4:18)
  2. "The Man" by Patto (6:07)
  3. "Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues" by McLusky (1:51)
  4. "Sittin' Back Easy" by Patto (3:35)
  5. "Brain" by The Action (2:59)
  6. "Over Under Sideways Down" by The Yardbirds (2:22)
  7. "Dwarves Must Die" by Dwarves (1:23)
  8. "Help Is On Its Way" by Little River Band (4:00)
  9. "Where Is My Mind?" by City Wolf (4:27)
  10. "Babyteeth" by Pyramid (4:10)
  11. "Observe and Report Score Suite" by Joseph Stephens (4:04)
  12. "Super Freek (Remix)" by Amanda Blank, Nina Cream, and Aaron LaCrate (2:26)

References

  1. ^ http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
  2. ^ Observe and Report Site
  3. ^ http://www.movies.com/observeandreport/movietimes/120411/
  4. ^ [1] Observe and Report Review 18 Mar 2009. Retrieved 1 Apr 2009.
  5. ^ Amy Longsdorf (2009-04-05). "See-sawing between naughty and nice". Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment/article/613396. 
  6. ^ http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/04/observe_and_report_director.html
  7. ^ http://www.avclub.com/articles/jody-hill,26484/
  8. ^ GQ Blog. Seth Rogen and Jody Hill talk 'Observe and Report' 13 Mar 2009. Retrived 3 April 2009
  9. ^ Campbell, Christopher. Observe and Report = The Dark Mall Cop. Today in Film Bloggery 02/09/09, Splout Blog, 9 Feb 2009. Retrieved 14 Mar 2009.
  10. ^ Legel, Laremy. Five Reasons Seth Rogen's Observe and Report Will Own Paul Blart. Flim.com, 2 Feb 2009. Retrieved 14 Mar 2009.
  11. ^ Ponto, Arya. "Observe and Report"—No, It's Not Another "Paul Blart" Just Press Play 7 Feb 2009. Retrieved 14 Mar 2009.
  12. ^ "Observe and Report Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/observe_and_report/. Retrieved 2009-11-24. 
  13. ^ "Observe and Report (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/observeandreport. Retrieved 2009-04-12. 
  14. ^ "Observe and Report (2009)- Yahoo! Movies". Yahoo! Movies. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810025224/info. Retrieved 2-009-04-11. 
  15. ^ http://www.movies.com/observeandreport/moviereview/120411.html | Critics and Fans
  16. ^ Fisher, luchina (April 14, 2009). "Observe and Report's' Date Rape Scene: Funny or Offensive?". abcnews. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Movies/story?id=7327855&page=1. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  17. ^ Antonia, Zerbisias (April 14, 2009). "If no means no, is yes `yes'?". Thestar.com (John Cruickshank). http://www.thestar.com/living/article/617839. Retrieved May 3, 2009. 
  18. ^ Controversy: Is the Seth Rogen Sex Scene in "Observe and Report" Date Rape or Harmless Fun? - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
  19. ^ http://www.howardstern.com/rundown.hs?d=1248926400
  20. ^ "Weekend Box Office Results for April 10-12, 2009". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2009&wknd=15&p=.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-12. 

External links


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