Review of Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) by Chads — 22 Jan 2009

From "The Remains of the Day", novelist Kazuo Ishiguro writes, "The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost..." Before "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" settles for being a "Die Hard" spoof, this "Mystery Men"-like take on action films has a tragi-comic approach to menial labor that bears some commonality with the 1989 Man Booker Prize-winning novel.

Unlike Stevens, Paul Blart(Kevin James) certainly has more ambition than the butler(Paul wants to be a cop), but when his hypoglycemia puts a crimp in his plans, he retreats into a world of his own making.

Whereas Stevens elevated the commonplace act of polishing silver and other quotidian chores into an art form, the security guard takes undue pride in helping shoppers with their bags and giving them directions.

Veck(Keir O'Donnell), a trainee subjected to Paul's tutelage, a stand-in for the audience, sees what we see as he receives the security guard's "pearls of wisdom", that this unskilled laborer has an overblown idea of his own importance.

To Amy(Jayma Mays), the love interest, Paul talks about the controversy brewing among people in his line of work, as if such occupational minutia was a universal concern. Such an insular worldview is strikingly similar to the butler who believes that everybody shares his appreciation of Mursden, home of Giffen and Co.

, makers of the best silver polish on the market. But alas, before "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" turns into a downer(shades of James Mangold's "Heavy"), the "officer"(the politically correct term for security guard) gets to save the day, in banal fashion.