Observe and Be Puzzled

Grade: C+

Confession time: I saw this all the way back in February, a good 2 months before it even came to theaters. But after a few months went by and I hadn't gotten around to writing about it, it just made more sense to wait until it came to DVD, which, conveniently enough, is today. So if you had thought about seeing it in theaters then forgot about it, here's your chance.

So what took me so long? Guess I just didn't care enough. Back when this was in theaters, it was being called Travis Bickle: Mall Cop, for its attempts to mix Taxi Driver with that other mall cop movie. If that sounds like a weird mix, it is. The movie starts off well enough, with a self-important mall cop with dreams of becoming a police officer seeing a mall-wide streaker as his chance to shine. But somewhere around the midway point it stops being a comedy and gets really, really serious. Then it just gets violent.

Basically, the movie can't decide on a tone, so just when it's told you it's one thing it turns into something else entirely. The bigger problem is it makes a much better comedy than a drama about Seth Rogen's deep-seated desire to become a cop or action movie about Seth Rogen hitting/shooting everything in sight. So by the halfway point, the best is far behind you.

The strange choice of tones may be somewhat explained by the fact that this is director Jody Hill's first studio movie, having previously helmed cult comedy The Foot Fist Way (which launched Danny McBride's career) and funny HBO show Eastbound & Down (which I've been meaning to watch again). As those other projects show, he's clearly talented and has good ideas, but much of Observe & Report feels student film level, like he's still figuring out what to do with the resources he's now been given. So it may be better to look at this as practice for the funnier films he's likely to make in the future.

That's not to say the movie's a complete misfire. Even though Seth Rogen basically plays Danny McBride's character from The Foot Fist Way (and less effectively), this is a big departure from the Apatow characters he's been typecast into, and he largely succeeds in making you forget them. Better yet are the cameos - Danny McBride as a low-level criminal and Aziz Ansari as a mall employee have the funniest scenes in the entire movie. Had their scenes been more typical, this could have been a solid comedy. Instead, we'll just have to wait and see what Jody Hill does next.