Observe and Report

This movie is all kinds of terrible. Now, i know you've seen bad movies, like, unbelievably bad movies, but this one is different: it's not just bad, it's repulsively awful! I mean, i knew going into it that it was supposed to be a "dark and different comedy", but oh my god. For hours after seeing this movie i felt like i needed to cleanse myself of it's awfulness.

Observe and Report is marketed as a comedy - though i can't for the life of my figure out why. This movie's clear intent was not to make anyone laugh but to shock audiences with gore, nudity and graphic graphic violence - in all the most predictable ways. Now, i'm all for these things (in small doses), but gore, violence and nudity are only interesting as PART of something, not simply on their own. Well, ok, nudity can be interesting on it's own, but trust me: that's not the kind of nudity this movie's dealing with... unless you have a thing for fat, middle-aged genitalia.

The movie starts with a semi-interesting premise. Ripping the line straight from the Famous Players website (www.cineplex.com): "A deluded, self-important head of mall security squares off in a turf war against the local cops." It doesn't sound great, yeah, but you can probably picture some funny moments as the security guard tries to take his job overly serious or something. But while what we get in Observe and Report is, essentially, what it says, it is nothing at all like what you'd expect - and that's certainly a bad thing.

The main character, Ronnie (Seth Rogen), is a rent a cop who thinks he's a real cop and in fact yearns to be one. He also happens to be the most unlikeable character i've ever seen cast in a leading role. He has exactly one positive characteristic, but the movie goes out of its way to keep from playing it up and allowing the audience to make any kind of connection with the character at all. Ronnie is abusive, violent, deluded, proud, sociopathic and stupid - and none of these in "the good way". It's also implied that Ronnie might have some of these problems because he's bipolar, which is just outright offensive on the same level as saying a character might be prone to violence because of the colour of his skin. It's so insulting i can't understand how film makers and producers mistook it for comedic... even dark comedy.

The movie doesn't really have a story, but seems to bounce around from one tasteless encounter to the next as its hero insults, brutalizes and attempts to belittle anyone he comes across who doesn't worship the ground he walks on, which is, essentially, everyone but his idiot-squad of mall security guards who seem to get their hard-on from shooting guns and waiting for the day they can use them on the job to shoot a shoplifter or something. If nothing else, this movie paints an excellent portrait of why "the right to bear arms" should be anything but.

Oh, this movie also has that inexplicable love-story crap that comes as part of all movies nowadays, but has the odd distinction of having it fit in even LESS than the typical movie would. It's downright TRAGIC that Ronnie should find ANY happiness in his life, given the kind of sociopathic tenancies he's prone to. Hell, it's not like he even tries to be a sympathetic individual... he makes no mistake that he wants people to worship him for his (imagined) position in life. But of course, there's still a girl in the caste who falls for that unique brand of charm: Nell (Collette Wolfe - wife of the writer/director Jody Hill).

Nell is of course as flat as everyone else in the film, but she manages at least to get sympathy from the audience. This isn't due to any character trait (no no! She's too flat for that!), but because she's *sniffle* in a wheelchair... because she recently had ankle surgery and has to stay off her foot for a few weeks.

Well, since a wheelchair alone does not a sympathetic character make, the film has to throw in some cartoon villains to drive the point home: her manager and coworker - two characters who get a rise out of mocking Nell for her extremely temporary condition of being in a wheelchair. It's quite literally the only way you can make these "movie bad guys" look worse than the already despicable and loathsome main character without them being nazis or something.

The movie ends with Ronnie, no longer a mall security guard (due to sociopathy), shoots a serial streaker in front of mall patrons (to end his "rain of psychological terror" i guess). This act of public barbarism is treated as fair punishment for the streaker and Ronnie is not only given back his job, but wins the girl and receives applause from every single character in the movie. Yes yes, i know it's supposed to be treated as comedy, but that's my point: it's not. Not even close. Comedy requires cleverness and this movie is anything but clever at the best of times.

I thought i'd seen the worst movie ever made when i saw 88 Minutes, but i was wrong. Observe and Report is the new "worst movie ever". This movie is so bad it should be avoided like the plague. It's not a comedy and it doesn't try to be. This movie is nothing but garbage that's meant to shock audiences; that's it. It's not clever, it's not witty, it's just terrible. If someone asks to go see this movie with them say, "no". If they threaten to kill you if you don't go see this movie with them say, "i dare you to".

This is easily the worst piece of trash that's ever been mislabeled a movie, ever. Do not see it, don't even rent it. If you pirate it, you're only wasting precious bandwidth and time. Just... do yourself a favour and pretend it doesn't exist. Jody Hill is clearly a terrible writer/director and i'd even advise boycotting future movies just based on this piece of trash.

My rating? Pure garbage.

Btw, sorry about no comic this time around (the movie doesn't deserve one): i'll make up for it with something special next time. Now, if you'll excuse me, i need to find a way to wash this horrible travesty from my mind's eye.