There is only one sweet, somewhat-likable character in Observe
and Report, and it’s not Seth Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhardt. Barnhardt,
a mall security guard, is a racist gun nut with sociopathic tendencies
who keeps a lazy, jealous watch over the mall, which he regards as his
kingdom. He speaks with Rogen’s amiable teddy-bear growl, but there’s
nothing resembling Knocked Up here: Barnhardt is obsessed with
being the hero, and there’s nothing more heroic to him than smashing
the brains out of anyone who gets in his way.
With a creepy confidence, Barnhardt tries to woo Brandi (Anna
Faris), the vaguely retarded makeup-counter employee who is the
prettiest girl in the mall. In his off time, he spends hours at the
firing range talking about how his job would be perfect if they’d just
let him carry a gun. The surprising thing about Jody Hill’s direction
is that he makes no effort to excuse Barnhardt, or his slutty,
late-stage alcoholic mother, or Ray Liotta’s smarmy police detective.
Instead, we just watch these awful people do awful things to each
other.
There’s a possibility that another film would try to squeeze some
easy laughs out of the protagonist’s dangerous, unstable nature. But
Hill keeps the film coming directly from Barnhardt’s perspective,
making it something akin to a comic version of Taxi Driver: We
are experiencing this man’s life—brutal assaults, date rapes, and
all—from his point of view, and he doesn’t entertain the question
that what he does might be wrong. It makes for an uncomfortable viewing
experience, and you never know what’s going to happen next; this could
have been the first mainstream comedy to reasonably end with a brutal
mass murder/suicide. America loved and embraced Paul Blart: Mall
Cop, but maybe Barnhardt—violent, amoral, racist, gun loving,
heavily medicated, and incapable of self-reflection—is the mall
cop that America deserves. 
So, uh…is it good?
DUH, it’s clearly AMAZING
Fuck this movie!
It’s what Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold would have grown up to be if they didn’t viciously murder their classmates.
The only funny scenes are the cocaine scene and the “fuck you” scene. Besides that, the movie is DARK, depressing and you have to listen to the cliched voiceover of a raving lunatic.
What pisses me off is that the studio’s cut a trailer to make this look really funny.
Let me tell you folks, it ain’t. If you want to squirm uncomfortably next to your date for two hours, then by all means…
Paul,
Jinx. On my way home, I was thinking the same thing: Someone’s tried to make a comedy starring Travis Bickell.
The reason Jody Hill fails is the number of ridiculous and impossible scenes he wants us to accept. You can take that in a comedy, especially a screwball. But there was nothing funny about this. Weird and creepy, you bet. The scene where Rogen is at the firing range with the two Koreans left me feeling like a pre-Virginia Tech moment. Poor taste.
I can’t believe the studio greenlit this mess.
This movie sucked!
It has no idea what it wants to be.
wait, so who exactly is the “one sweet, somewhat-likable character in Observe and Report”?
@ Dminus
Um, I think it’s the coffee stand girl.
Aside from her this movie was simply creepy.
@ Paul
That says a lot about you, saying “maybe this is the mall cop that America deserves.” While people can be violent, amoral, racist, gun-loving, heavily medicated and incapable of self-reflecion, these don’t represent the vast majority of Americans. True, there are people that embody one or more of these traits, but it’s not exclusive to our country alone. If you believe that, then you need to travel abroad more. (Canada doesn’t count)
Turn off your TV. It’s easy to watch that thing and get bitter. The problem isn’t nearly as vast as one might think.
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
if there’s nothing in it
And you’ll ask yourself…
The whole movie is summed up in the scene showing Ray Liotta’s lame police detective charactor telling Seth Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhardt that he can’t be a cop because he is insane. In the scene Liotta has a second cop hide in the closet to hear the exchange. Half way though it he comes out and says “I thought this was going to be funny, but it is just sad.”
There is nothing funny about the movie, not even in a dark comedy sort of way. It is like watching someone enthusiastically exploit mentally ill people for money.
As for the numb-nuts, turd sucker who works for “The Stranger” who placed the green star next to the title indicating “The Stranger” recommends the movie – well you are one fucked up, stupid ass piece of fucking shit. Quit your job, and never recommend anything to anyone ever again. You are a complete fucking jackass.
It’s like Top Gun for bipolar people. Brilliant.
it sounds great
“There is nothing funny about the movie, not even in a dark comedy sort of way. It is like watching someone enthusiastically exploit mentally ill people for money.
As for the numb-nuts, turd sucker who works for “The Stranger” who placed the green star next to the title indicating “The Stranger” recommends the movie – well you are one fucked up, stupid ass piece of fucking shit. Quit your job, and never recommend anything to anyone ever again. You are a complete fucking jackass.”
Dude, it’s a movie. Fucking RELAX, you uptight PC Seattle douchebag.
I’m shocked at the vitriol people are showing this movie and this review. This is a very good movie. And it knows exactly what it wants to be: Uncomfortable, inappropriate, hilarious drama.
The TV trailer is, however, very disingenuous in trying to play this off as another Seth Rogan idiot comedy vehicle. It is not. It has depth and pathos and moments of sheer hilarity.
@ Andrew
If this was “sheer hilarity” for you, clearly you have bad taste.
It’d be like Robert DeNiro suddenly jumping from his cab, sprouting a cape and flying around New York, juggling apples. There were so many scenes that just didn’t fucking flow right. So much terrible dialogue. So many inappropriate topics the director was mugging for a laugh: Date-rape, drug-abuse, child-abuse, fratboy BRUTAL violence.
In the hands of a master comedian, MAYBE this could have been re-written and pulled off. But Jody Hill doesn’t have the wit or comedic chops.
I can’t believe you called this a “hilarious drama”. It was neither hilarious nor dramatic. It simply sucked dick.
People need to lighten up, if you dont like it dont watch it, its not gonna end the world if this movie is liked. Smoke a spliff and relax.
Guaranteed that any movie not easily pigeonholed (especially one that’s dark or strange or arty or doesn’t have a happy ending) is going to be marketed as either hilarious or sexy or both. We used to make a game of seeing which way the packaging would go on a film we knew to be … “unusual,” because it was always one or the other or both.
So the guy who’s telling people on this thread that they’re numb nutted turd suckers didn’t like the movie? Strange, it seems it was made for his particular hostilities and aggression. U.P. Yours is, in fact, himself a complete fucking jackass and I wonder how he deals with other things that slightly offend his upstanding moral judgment. Probably would beat the shit outta this reviewer if he could, just like the main character in Observe and Report!
And Steve, YOU have no idea what the movie is. That don’t mean it doesn’t. You just have no sense of humor. Shame really.
Seriously?
I saw this is a theater which had quite a few people in it. At first everybody was laughing along with the movie, but at the halfway point, right around the time that the date rape occurs, the laughs started turning into “Oh, fuck!”s and “What the hell” exclamations. There was even a long stretch (10-15 minutes) where the movie seems to go too far for them and there was nothing but stunned silence, occasionally punctured by the laughter of myself or one other dude.
You never know what’s going to happen next is very apt and a compliment. That the movie so utterly derails…and nobody walked out was a testament to its genius.
To all y’all who were disturbed, yay! Take it up with the studio if you don’t like the mismarketing. To the ones who loved the shit out of it…I love you too.
I usually try my best to avoid reviews before I go see a movie, but I was really glad that I read this review before I saw it. I was even more glad that I was able to prep my wife that it was supposed to be pretty dark. We went into it with the right mindset and both thoroughly enjoyed it. If we would have went in just after watching the trailers, we probably would have had a much different take.
Fist Foot Way (another Jody Hill film) was an incredibly depressing, obnoxious, unfunny comedy about a dim, egomaniacal karate teacher and his dim, cheating wife. The main character was also violent, stupid, unstable and totally despicable in his interactions with women. I just wonder .. I wonder….
*I like comedy, all kinds of comedy and I am a woman but I also know what is funny and what is just .. weird. Jody Hill directs terrible, unfunny, weird films. Maybe if he moved away from comedies where he could go all macabre all over our asses without it being so uncomfortable to watch.
the worst part is if you’re in a theater where everyone is laughing hysterically at every scene. not that no one could find it funny, but there’s a difference between edgy and weird and uncomfortable laughter at mental illness and violence, and the kind of belly laughs you let rip at slapstick comedy. the theater i went to got the biggest laugh of the whole night at the date rape scene- and it wasn’t just that moment where she says something. they were just laughing at vomit + fucking. ew.
Thanks for telling us about the climactic murder/suicide in both the review and the “Stranger Suggests” blurb, fuckface.
movie was awesome. its not what i expected and that ruled. fuck with my expectations! more please hollywood!!
I’m severely disappointed by the comments I’m reading here. I LOVE Seth Rogen and think he’s great in everything he does. Is this movie really that much of a train wreck?! I was so excited to see it and now I don’t know what movie to go see this weekend.