09/17/10 - Observe and Report

Observe and Report (2009, 86 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1197628/

I'd read in an article that Observe and Report was supposed to be a comedy Taxi Driver. I'd wanted to rewatch Taxi Driver for a bit so I decided to give Observe and Report a watch first. The previews didn't make it out to be that good in my opinion but I was going in with an open mind.

The film follows a mall security guard named Ronnie Barnhardt played by Seth Rogen. Unfortunately at the mall there's a flasher (Pervert played by Randy Gambill) and a thief (who turns out to also be on mall security - Dennis played by Michael Peña). Ronnie wants to solve the problems but the head of the mall calls in Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta). Also with prominent roles are: Anna Faris as Brandi, the girl that works at the mall that Ronnie likes; and Collette Wolfe as Nell, a girl that works at a coffee stand in the mall that likes Ronnie.

I can say without any hesitation that this is the worst marketed movie of which I'm aware. This was billed as a straight up comedy but it's not even close to that but rather it's a straight dark comedy. Sure, there's funny moments here and there (I admit that I did chuckle quite a few times) but on the whole a comedy doesn't deal with depression, bipolar disorder, drugs, and social ineptitude in the way this film does. I will admit that it does derive many qualities from Taxi Driver and there are obvious character similarities. However, I think this was in basic themes alone as some of the qualities of Taxi Driver (like the unforgettable finale) have no clear parallel in Observe and Report. I guess you could say there's that fight between Ronnie and the cops but this isn't a full parallel since in Taxi Driver it's a shootout against the pimp of the young prostitute and Detective Harrison doesn't fulfill that role. When Ronnie threatens Nell's boss (who clearly serves as the prostitute character) there's this parallel but it's not important enough as the big finale in Taxi Driver so it's sort of weak overall. Anyway, my whole point here before I digressed is that Observe and Report was horribly marketed. I think I was at least a bit aware of this before I came in so I wasn't as thrown aback as perhaps someone that saw this in theaters.

Next, I'd like to praise Seth Rogen. Rogen was running a very successful streak of comedies at this time and took a detour to do this film. I'm a huge fan of Rogen as he comes off with a great "everyman quality" about him in his performances. He sometimes has too much fun dropping pointless curses in my opinion but for the most part I think he does a great job with the characters he is given and this is no exception. Like before, there's some missteps with certain scenes that are supposed to be funny and are just stupid but I think this is more to blame on the script than Rogen. To be honest, Rogen is pretty much the only stand out in the film. Sure, Liotta does well but he just doesn't fit the role that well. He's more a drama guy to me and the comedy seems a bit foreign to me. He looks the part of the character he's playing but sometimes his comedic timing and that is a little off. Most of the other cast is pretty lacking to be honest. I think Faris does a poor job and is just boring. Most of the other security guards are given over-the-top dialogue in attempts to be funny and for the most part this doesn't work (especially with Dennis). However, it's hard to blame this on their acting. Finally, the only other character that's worth a mention is Wolfe's Nell. She probably does the second best job of anyone but she also has the most to work with. Her character is a bit fleshed out and has a small story arc which can't be said of most anyone else. She handles it well though so she makes her character a bit more memorable for that reason.

Finally, I'd like to talk more about the Taxi Driver connection. The biggest thing for me is that Taxi Driver is hard to turn into a comedy. I read once that Taxi Driver can be interpreted to explore almost any theme imaginable and while I don't fully agree with that, I do think that Taxi Driver is a much deeper movie the more you think about it (reflected in my changing the score from the initial 8/10 to the current 9/10). When it's put in a comedic setting much of those themes are lost (though that's fine really for many of them since we're now in the comedy setting and can explore some things that the drama of Taxi Driver just can't do) and it somewhat hurts the end product. On the whole, I think Observe and Report fails at being a comedy version of Taxi Driver just because it doesn't explore enough themes fully and falters in some areas. However, it does at least try to bring in these topics of bipolar disorder and loneliness that are handled with such expertise in Taxi Driver. Observe and Report does perhaps reflect on the basic elements of Taxi Driver I guess, but it doesn't go much beyond that which hurts. Instead, the film tries to have flat comedic characters which I just don't think work. Too many times I found things that were supposed to be funny just really stupid.

Overall, I gave this film a 5/10. For everything that Observe and Report does right it does something wrong. I think this is best summed up during the conversation between Detective Harrison and Ronnie when Ronnie is told he didn't pass the psychological part of the process to become a police officer. The movie sets this up in a comedic way and then diverges and handles it seriously. Frequently I felt that Observe and Report didn't know if it should handle something with jokes or with seriousness. About half the time the choice worked out and about half the time it didn't.