Review of Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) by Chris B — 18 Dec 2011

When a shopping mall is overtaken by a gang of organized crooks, it's up to the a mild-mannered security guard to save the day.Paul Blart (Kevin James) is a mild-mannered, occasionally square, overweight security officer who works at patrol in the West Orange Pavilion Mall in West Orange, New Jersey. He lives with his elderly mother Margaret (Shirley Knight) and daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez), and dreams of being able to join the New Jersey State Police, but he always fails his entrance test due to his hypoglycemia. While on patrol at work riding his Segway PT, Blart notices a new wig kiosk and its vendor, Amy Anderson (Jayma Mays) and is instantly attracted to her. Back at base, Blart has to take the new guy, Veck Simms (Keir O'Donnell), out on a patrol to train him. At the end of his shift, Blart becomes acquainted with Amy and escorts her to her yellow 1966 Ford Mustang convertible. Amy invites Blart to join her, Veck, and the rest of his friends at American Joe's, and Blart accepts and attends the event. At the event, however, Blart gets extremely drunk after drinking too much margarita during his nacho eating contest with Leon (Jamal Mixon) and crashes the stage that the band is playing on, culminating with him falling through one of the mall's windows.

On Thanksgiving, Blart feels as though he embarrassed Amy and that she doesn't like him anymore and Maya tries to cheer him up. On Black Friday at the shopping mall, Amy, Stuart (Stephen Rannazzisi), and other of Blart's colleagues are in the bank to cash their paychecks. While a gang of criminals (in disguise as Santa's Little Helpers) suddenly break through the service entrance and take over the mall, Blart is distracted by playing Rock Band in the arcade zone. The criminals clear the mall, placing motion sensors along every entrance and exit doors, and take Amy, Stuart, Leon, and other of Blart's colleagues hostage in the bank. Veck is revealed to be a double agent and the ringleader of the hijackers, and plans to use the credit card codes from all the stores in the mall to steal $30 million and later fly to the Cayman Islands, taking the hostages with him. As Blart leaves the arcade, he notices that the mall has been taken over and calls the police who later show up outside the front entrance of the mall. Sergeant Howard (Adam Ferrara) instructs Blart to leave the mall immediately, but when Blart sees Amy's car in the parking lot, he realizes that he must rescue Amy and everyone else. The SWAT team soon arrives and Commander James Kent (Bobby Cannavale), who bullied Blart in high school, takes control of the situation. Blart is vastly outnumbered and physically outclassed, but fights against the gang members through improvised measures. Maya shows up to brifng Blart his dinner, but Veck's henchmen intercept her and take her hostage as well. After Blart works his way through all of Veck's underlings, he attempts to extract the hostages by pulling them up into an airvent via the rope, but fails after Leon cannot fit and when Veck enters the room, Blart is captured. Veck demands to have the credit card codes and Blart is forced to fling him the phone that contains the codes. Veck escapes with the codes and holds Amy and Maya at gunpoint.