4/9/09

Observe and Report

The saddest thing about this pathetic travesty, is that it will probably make money! One of my companions called it a "Spring Break" movie; and I'm afraid that might be true.... Yuck!

Seth Rogan ("Knocked Up" and "Pineapple Express") turns up the raunch for this one. He is an idiotic mall cop with delusions of adequacy exacerbated by a (sporadically medicated) bipolar disorder. His mother is a drunken simpleton, his co-workers are dolts and the love of his life, played by the usually fetching Anna Faris ("House Bunny") is just plain disgusting. I was horrified to see Ray Liotta ("Wild Hogs" and "Battle in Seattle") in this debacle. What in the world was he thinking?

The only person I could conceivably root for was the poor gal at the donut shop but I certainly didn't agree with her choice of boyfriends when she fell for our "maul" cop. This violates my most basic requirement for any movie: I've gotta have someone to root for.

We saw unwarranted violence, heard more "F**K YOU!"s than we could count, and then were subjected to an entire panoply of drug use that was supposed to be entertaining.

The character with the most exposure (...heh, heh...) was the flasher who opened and closed this dog's dinner. The final scenes were comprised of an extended chase with his whatchamacallit flapping in the breeze as he raced through the crowded mall.

Nah...I'd pay NOT to see this one!

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I wish I could write like this critic in the Washington Post: John Anderson warns that Seth Rogen's "Observe and Report" is way too dark, weird and unfunny: "Rogen is playing a delusional, violent, sexist, racist, homophobic mall cap with a bipolar disorder, so there's not really a lot to laugh at. In fact, how the movie got made at all is going to remain one of those mysteries, like decaffeinated coffee and little ships in bottles."