Review of Observe and Report (2009) by Harry W — 21 Jan 2014

I watched Observe and Report on the same day that I watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop. And since I was disappointed with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, I hoped for more from Observe and Report.

Although Observe and Report isn't a consistent comedy, it does have some hilarious moments. But there really isn't enough of them and depending on what the audience likes in comedy, it will prove hit and miss.

The characters are seriously weird. I mean, Seth Rogen portrays Ronnie, an idiotic and selfish security guard with bipolar disorder in love with a stuck up girl who he has no chance with. And whoever the hell told Michael Pena to pretend he had a lisp is really messed up and clearly can not be certain of what real comedy is.

And really, like his previous effort on The Foot Fist Way, Jody Hill's Observe and Report is sporadical in being funny but is consistently a strange story. And he really fails to grip it as a director and let's it go all over the place without narrative consistency or strong structure. And I don't know if it's supposed to be a study of a character with bipolar disorder or just a very scattered comedy, but it doesn't exactly succeed in either areas. While it ties itself up at the end, it's loose for most of the film.

I can't call it a good film, because as it was funny the rate was simply all over the place and it was paced oddly. It just stuck too much into its running time of 86 minutes and it never stuck to any one key plot which made it scattershot.

But the cast does a mostly good job.

Seth Rogen has a really messed up character to work with, but his performance does almost tie Observe and Report together. Plus he's a powerful and confident lead role and delivers some surprises at times which is pretty hilarious. His charisma and line delivery is powerful so he proves to be a good lead in such a complicated dark comedy.

Anna Faris plays her character well, but the character is so awful that it's just unbearable when she's on screen.

Ray Liotta delivers a confident and strong performance which gives a really strong support to the film, more than you'd expect. He just nails the role.

Michael Pena and Collette Wolfe also made good presences in the film.

Danny McBride was also hilarious in his cameo role because he was perfectly excessive and just hilarious as always. Patton Oswald had a decent cameo as well.

And Observe and Report does benefit from fine cinematography combined with stylish editing and a great soundtrack with many great pieces by Queen.

So Observe and Report is worth checking out and does have its positive qualities, but it's pretty excessive and weird.