Observe and Report

With the success of the Foot Fist Way, about a mean-spirited karate instructor, writer/director Jody Hill makes his new film Observe and Report which shares one similar characteristic to Foot Fist Way, a dysfunctional and psychotic protagonist. Seth Rogen gives the performance of his career in his best film to date as Ronnie Barnhardt, a racist, bipolar, egotistic, violent, brave, and, surprisingly, kind-hearted overweight mall cop. In Observe and Report, a flasher has exposed himself to several women at a shopping mall and Ronnie views this as his opportunity to prove his 'greatness' by bringing the man responsible to justice. Taking advantage of the situation, Ronnie tricks a recent victim of the flasher, Brandi (Anna Farris), to have dinner with him. Following the dinner, is a sex scene which could be viewed as date rape due to the fact that Brandi is drunk, drugged-up from pills, and partially unconscious. Even a scene such as this that deals with a disturbing matter is turned into comedy when Ronnie momentarily stops his thrusting to check if Brandi is okay and Brandi responds by exclaiming, "Why are you stopping m***erf***er!" This scene is one of the prime examples of the magic of this film in that it always kept me in a confused state as to whether or not to laugh uproariously or feel shocked. Another unconventional moment occurs when an actual police officer, Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta), drops off Ronnie in a rough neighborhood as a practical joke and to teach him a lesson in that being a mall cop is not the same as being an actual police officer. When Ronnie is confronted by a group of muscular crack-dealers, I was again perplexed as to whether or not to be appalled by how brutally Ronnie defeats them or laugh at how the situation turned against Harrison and fed more to Ronnie's ego. However, no matter how big Ronnie's ego is or how he always uses violence as the means to serving justice, I always felt sympathetic towards him. I think this sense of sympathy came from how well-intentioned Ronnie is, how alienated he feels, and his genuine ability to love. This feeling was illustrated in a scene where Detective Harrison plays a cruel joke on Ronnie by putting his hopes up in becoming an actual police officer and then telling him that he did not make the cut. Before Harrison gives Ronnie the bad new, another officer hides in the closet so he can have a laugh at how the pathetic mall cop has his hopes crushed. However when Harrison actually gives Ronnie the news, the police officer comes out of the closet, ashamed, stating, "I thought this was gonna be funny, but it's actually kind of sad." The film's balance of comedy and sadness carries and builds itself to its psychotic climax that would be completely implausible in another comedy, but it makes only perfect sense in Observe and Report because it is only reasonable to Ronnie's psychosis.