Really Surprised!

Fantastic!

A Brilliant Conflict

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This movie is painful to watch and I requested my money back.This movie is not a comedy! Not because It's not funny----but because its written as some sort of hybrid fairytale about violence and crude behavior without consequences, and sticking it to authority.This movie is terrible because Seth Rogen's style is to make everything unnecessarily profane to the point of irrelevancy. There is one painful exchange in the film between Rogen and (guess who . . .) Aziz Ansari who was the poster boy for anti-descrimination in Muslim/Arab comedy before his lifestyle caught up with him. The dialogue? A full minute of the two screaming "F you" at one another in a crowded mall. Funny? No, its Seth Rogen at his finest, bringing non-mainstream behavior into popular film. I think whats happened with Seth's crew, and you can name them on two hands, is that they find THEMSELVES very funny and think that you should also . . . Its pathetic "bro humor of the worst kind" and completely worthless as a comedic plot device.This movie takes pride in being inaccurate and unrepresentative of Police, Mall security people, shoppers, managers, everyone cast in this movie, and, since its not a comedy, there's no reason for the stupid characterizations of the cast. I love Anna Faris. Ray Liotta is awesome. But I can't understand why they accepted the roles in this film! Neither is funny or acts true to life. There's so much wrong with this film, mostly in its depiction of violence with zero consequences. There are actual shootings and beatings committed by Rogen's character in this film, as a civilian. He assaults a squad of police, shoots a misdemeanor flasher/streaker in a store full of people, drinks and uses drugs on the job, allows his co-worker to steal thousands of dollars on the job, commits rape while his love interest is passed out, and yet, no consequences!Yet ,he is given a security guard position back after committing numerous felonies! Is it a comedy? No, and it doesn't try to be funny, just in your face about what's right and what's wrong.In this movie, every conventional mainstream behavior is filtered through Seth Rogen's world.That world is disgusting, clueless, and overbearing.

You have to admit that when you are watching most comedies there are a number of things that you have to overlook. Be it plot, plausibility, dialog, depth of purpose etc. One in a thousand comedies can be considered high brow art. I think the thing most critics missed in their analysis is that they didn't like Ronnie's many highly socially awkward moments. It makes the critics sense of sensibility go into crisis lock down mode then they hate it all. This film has a great plot (for a comedy), it has really exceptional cinematography, good social commentary. I did like how well they captured the grandiose nature of a type 1 bi-polar person with hilarious grand Hollywood style epic scenes. The cop fight, the skateboarder beat down/drug binge, shooting the flasher etc. also there were subtle things in the movie that were hilarious. Ronnie's detective board, the candid shots of people in the mall, looks that the flasher made during the chase. Normally I hate the moments of heart in comedies. But there were some good ones Especially with the cop in slicked back hair, the drunk mom and Ronnie at the end of the date.The film left me questioning my dreams and possible grandeur by showing how easy the social fabric of society can turn on you based on one conversation or bad relationship with one person. It also showed how many times those socially unacceptable conversations or situations can be irrelevant. I guess the critics can't handle that.

On the surface, Observe and Report looks like the sort of cynical black comedy your parents would love to hate. Yet to my surprise I found it to be a movie of genuine substance. Rather than just giving me another reason to laugh at the chaos of life, it sneakily suggests an uncomfortable truth - that maybe everything is not meaningless, and maybe, just maybe, there is still something of value worth fighting for in this superficial pre-packaged life. When you "get" this movie, you realise it's not the post-modern mental chewing gum kids want, but rather a twisted but moral tale that parents should cheer... and it's this fact that made me laugh the most. This is a clever, interesting movie that betrays the expectations of the modern liberal audience - and I think this is why so many critics have panned it. They just wanted mental chewing gum, but got mental All-Bran instead. Observe and Report is a smirking, cynical tale about a typical "white trash" guy that few people have respect for, someone altogether forgettable and easy to mock - the mall security guard. Ronnie is the typical mall security guard supervisor, someone we know and generally dislike - a jumped up pseudo-cop who's modicum of power gives him a sense of excess, undeserved pride. Ronnie starts off as the fairly pathetic nobody we expect him to be - and we laugh at his antics. Yet despite his weaknesses, obsessions and sad life, Ronnie slowly proves himself to be someone bigger than he should be, and it's all because he believes in something genuinely good and real. Regardless of his borderline insanity, by the end, his stand for what he believes in earns him something we all want - respect and meaning in life. This movie cleverly takes us from using our own prejudices to laugh at Ronnie (as most movies do), to uncomfortably realising that maybe we suck for having these prejudices, because Ronnie, despite his own prejudices, limitations, and crappy life, actually believes in (and acts on) something good - and this alone makes him a valuable human being. So what if his achievements are small. So what is his life has its crappy parts. So what if he's borderline delusional. Ronnie has a belief in something that valuable to others... and in the end, he wins.There are enough reviews out there giving details of this movie's plot, so I won't get it that much. I just wanted to let you know that Observe and Report is on the surface a black, post-modern comedy, but underneath it's a story using a theme we all love, delivered in its own quirky way - the little guys overcomes adversity, takes up the challenge and in the end, wins the girl and the respect of his peers. I really enjoyed this movie and look forward to watching it again. If you like black humour and character-driven drama that doesn't pull its punches then you will really enjoy Observe and Report.

Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) is a self-deluded mall chief security guard and lives with his alcoholic mother (Celia Weston). He pines for the superficial cosmetic sales clerk Brandi (Anna Faris). There's the new girl Nell (Collette Wolfe) working at the food court. There's also a flasher stalking the mall parking lot. Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) comes to investigate. Working under Ronnie are the twins, Dennis (Michael Peña), and the kid Charles (Jesse Plemons). Then the mall gets robbed.Coming so close after 'Paul Blart', it got lost in the confusion. Unlike that movie, this is a much darker affair and funnier because of it. It has some ridiculous stupidity and funny idiocy. Writer/director Jody Hill is the same guy that made 'The Foot Fist Way'. It has the same feel, but like that movie, this schtick does get tiring. Ronnie is arrogantly stupid, and petty. It's not really in Seth Rogen's wheelhouse. It's much more Danny McBride's character although I understand why they got the bigger star to lead.