Observe and Report

An unstable mall security guard (Seth Rogen) finds himself threatened by a detective (Ray Liotta) assigned to investigate the case of a flasher who exposed himself to a cosmetics girl (Anna Faris).

Observe and Report is like a mashup of two good movies. In this case, you’ve got a farcical physical comedy in which an overweight mall cop beats up punk kids, dates a drunken cosmetics girl, and tries to become a police officer mixed with a pitch-black comedy about egoism, fascism and the dangers of power. Unfortunately, like most mashups, the result isn’t anywhere near as good as its parts.

The stronger half is the subversive black comedy, which plays like a comedic version of Taxi Driver. It doesn’t get the big laughs, but it’s much more rewarding and ultimately what sets the film apart. The physical comedy is hit and miss, delightful when it goes way over the top, weak when it goes for the obvious.

This is a movie that spends far too much time shifting gears. As it moves from comedy to drama to farce and back, the film wastes a lot of time trying to transition with scenes that end up stalling out. It’s a fatal flaw, that’s made more frustrating by the fact that there’s a lot of funny here, it’s just… mashed up.