To 'Observe' A Disturbed Man

by Brett Parker

If Taxi Driver were filmed as a goofball comedy, it would probably look a lot like Observe and Report, the new comedy that places Seth Rogen in the role of a disgruntled mall cop. Both films follow a mentally-disturbed outsider who thinks brutal violence is the only solution against the festering amorality of everyday society. That’s pretty deep for a screwball comedy, a fact the film itself is all too aware of. That makes Observe and Report just as scary as it is funny. And since the film is pretty damn hilarious, that should tell you how dark things can get here.

Rogen plays Ronnie Barnhardt, the head of security for a suburban shopping mall. Ronnie dreams of one day becoming a real cop but is handicapped by his jaded temperament, delusions of grandeur, and his bipolar disorder. He is the Dirty Harry of mall cops, sticking to a strict code and showing no mercy towards skateboarders and shoplifters. This doesn’t seem to bother his cohorts, which consists of an easy going Mexican (Michael Pena) and a gun-loving pair of Asian twins (John Yuan & Matt Yuan), who more or less empower Ronnie’s self-importance.

Ronnie is finally given a mission in life when a perverted flasher shows his skin to female shoppers in the mall parking lot. One of the flasher’s targets happens to be Brandi (Anna Faris), a make-up counter girl who is the object of Ronnie’s desire. Ronnie feels he can impress Brandi and become a true man of justice if he finds and punishes the flasher by any means necessary. Ronnie furiously morphs into a deranged Elliot Ness lugging his trusty untouchables around in an insane plot to catch the pervert. Yet the mission gets threatened by Ronnie’s madness and the intervention of a real police detective (Ray Liotta) who thinks Ronnie is a complete lunatic.

I’m in complete awe of this film’s audacity and insanity. While this film has the usual gags and giggles we expect of such a genre, the film surprisingly acknowledges the darker aspects of the script’s material. Director Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way) brings full attention to how sad and disturbing Ronnie’s mindset and mission truly is, giving the film an unsettling undercurrent that brings the material to strange heights. A lot of the film’s pay-offs come off more disturbing than funny. Take, for example, a scene in which Ronnie is placed in the middle of a dangerous, inner-city gang zone. He is approached and threatened by a drug-dealing gang (hilariously led by Danny McBride) who draw a gun on him. We can imagine a million goofy outcomes for such a situation. What we get is Ronnie pulling out a concealed stick and beating the gang members into a bloody pulp. And we’re not talking slapstick movie violence here; this is an all out beat down filled with blood and rage. This scene demonstrates the film’s habit of jumping tracks from goofiness to sheer savagery.

I wasn’t kidding when I compared this comedy to Taxi Driver. Ronnie Barnhardt will shake you just as Travis Bickle did. Both characters have anger that boils so deep that they feel a gun is the only true justice left in the world. Both men face crumbling sexual inadequacy in the face of a desirable blonde and find that the only way they can obtain an orgasmic climax is through a release of violence. Halfway through the film, Ronnie delivers a voiceover narration that is absolutely stunning in how similar it is to Bickle’s thoughts. It damn near breaks the fabric of the film. In this moment, the film completely forgets that it’s a comedy and completely revels in Ronnie’s darkness.

Seth Rogen has spent his comic career thus far fleshing out a likeable and charming teddy bear image. Here he completely throws that into the fire and commits to Ronnie’s anger every step of the way. He’s so convincing as a sociopath nutcase that it will truly shake you. He wisely doesn’t make Ronnie a bizarre eccentric but simply a fed-up man growing alarmingly frustrated with the world around him. It’s not easy to look so infuriated for an entire movie. This is hand’s down his best performance yet, and his scariest.

So intriguing is the darker aspects of the film that we’re pretty reluctant for the film to return to silly comic levels. There are some characters I didn’t feel worked, including a handicapped barista (Collette Wolfe) who grows attracted to Ronnie. She’s sweet and convincing, but I think it’d be more effective to show Ronnie being completely isolated. And while it’s great to see Michael Pena straying away from pretentious dramas such as Crash and Babel, I found his character to be stereotypical and unfunny. But I truly found Anna Ferris to be terrific, perfectly spoofing up contemporary bimbos in a way that’s not as exaggerated as you think. And I have to give serious credit to Randy Gambill; it takes a demented courage to do what he does in front of millions of moviegoers. I won’t exactly say what he does, only to say that women that complain about a lack of male nudity in movies should be careful what they wish for.

Observe and Report doesn’t exactly transcend its comic level, but it’s flirtations with tragic depths make it an exceptional work. You won’t soon forget this work of insanity and you’ll sort of wonder if this film could’ve gone to more twisted levels (its “happy” final scene is kind of a let down). The film’s effect can be summed up in one specific scene: a police detective (Ben Best) hides in an office closet to listen in on Ronnie being rejected from the real police force. Halfway through the heartbreaking rejection, the detective walks out of the closet and declares, “I thought this was gonna be really funny, but it’s actually just really sad.”