Trust me, this isn't "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2".
This new film from the director of "Foot Fist Way" is a semi-sadistic take on the daily struggles that can be encountered by a person with bi-polar disease.
Bi-polar mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt (played by Seth Rogen) is called into action to stop a flasher from turning shopper's paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can't apprehend the culprit, a surly police detective (played by Ray Liotta) is recruited to close the case, bringing out the worst in Ronnie's temperamental personality.
I'm not really sure how to summarize my take on this piece of celluloid. It's one of those films that when the lights come back up during the credits, you say to yourself: "Huh, what did I just see?"
It's definitely a different film for Rogen. I can imagine many movie-goers being turned off by the dark humor and off-kilter nature of his mall security guard character.
As an art school graduate, this film reminded me of those college days where we would critique each others' films.
These critiquing sessions would always get awkward when the artsy fartsy, "takes himself too seriously" film student would get up and showcase his latest opus. The film would be so out of whack film that it wouldn't make any sense to the common viewer.
"Observe and Report" is kind of like those crazy student films, except for one thing: It's competent. You can tell the director made decisions for certain reasons. It's different enough that automatically it was obviously worth making, I'm just not sure it was worth paying for.
I remember what I observed; I'm just not sure what exactly I should be reporting on.
2 buckets.
