REVIEW: Observe and Report (2009)

From the director of the hilarious comedy THE FOOT FIST WAY (2006) comes this raucous comedy about the life of mall security guards with a funny cast led by the funny Seth Rogen, star of KNOCKED UP (2007) and the upcoming adaptation of THE GREEN HORNET.

Rogen plays Ronnie Burnhardt, the head of security at the local mall. He has dreams of being a real police officer as well as having a major crush on perfume store worker Brandi (Anna Faris), who doesn’t seem to want to give Ronnie the time of day. However, that becomes the least of Ronnie’s problems.

A flasher has been stalking the mall and exposes himself constantly to the female patrons in the parking lot. While Ronnie does whatever he can to find the flasher and end his “terror”, he finds more fish to fry when a robber has been invading the mall after hours. When Brandi becomes the latest victim of the flasher, Ronnie finds himself an opportunity to perhaps get close to her. Meanwhile, he finds himself at constant odds with police detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), the hotshot local cop who has a knack for making Ronnie look bad. The results of everything are sure to be hysterical in one way or another.

For his directorial debut THE FOOT FIST WAY, Jody Hill tackled the troubled life of a taekwondo instructor yet made it one of the most talked about comedies of the year thanks to comic actor Will Ferrell and star Danny McBride. For his second feature, mall security guards in action is the concept here and once again, Hill succeeds thanks to the performance of lead actor Seth Rogen leading the cast in one mishap after another.

Known for being “that shaggy guy” in THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN (2006) and KNOCKED UP (2007), Rogen is seen with a complete clean cut and on his way to losing the massive pounds he would eventually lose as he preps up for THE GREEN HORNET (2010). However, Rogen’s style of comedy still shows and he plays lead character Ronnie to a tee. Dedicated to solving both cases involving a flasher and a robber, he attempts to stop at nothing to solve them, yet finds himself in the worst of situations at the same time.

The supporting cast for this film is nothing short of funny. Anna Faris, fresh off her breakthrough comedic role in THE HOUSE BUNNY (2009), brings the character she played in the ensemble comedy WAITING (2007) and uses it to play Ronnie’s dream girl Brandi. Michael Pena plays it off well as Ronnie’s best friend and fellow security man Dennis, who looks like a skinny Latino version of what Rogen “used” to look like while Ray Liotta shows that he can do some brand of comedy as the hotshot cop/rival of Ronnie, Detective Harrison.

Some of the humor is completely on the level of raunchy, but in this day of age, if you have survived THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, KNOCKED UP, or even the AMERICAN PIE series, then it is safe to say that this is definitely one you can live through, even though you will see the “flasher” running with his coat open in slow motion at times and it is quite a scare and a laugh at the same time.

OBSERVE AND REPORT is a pretty funny look at mall security guards with Seth Rogen in one of his finest performances, plus a funny supporting cast of this caliber with laughs from all sides of the spectrum.

AlbertV’s Rating: B

Rated R for language, mild violence, and sexuality
Run time: 86 minutes
Released by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Jody Hill. Written by Jody Hill. Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Ray Liotta, John Yuan, Matthew Yuan, Celia Weston, Colette Wolff, Aziz Ansari. Stunt coordinator Gary Hymes.