MOVIE REVIEW - Observe And Report

It seems every really funny guy at one time or another has to make a movie that seemed like a good idea at the time. But the reality is something completely different. That guy is Seth Rogan and that movie is Observe And Report.

Remember The Cable Guy? Jim Carrey at the time riding high with hit after hit, and then that piece of junk. Dark, disturbing, not funny? Here we go again. OAR is a horrible attempt at a dark comedy with a social message of some kind that just lays a huge egg, and did at the box office over the weekend.

Rogan plays a disturbed mall security officer who is on tons of medication for a bi-polar issue. He loves guns, and hates the fact that he can't carry one. He is mentally unbalanced, creepy to women, and just overall a nut job. He is fixated on Brandi (Anna Farris) who works in the mall as a cosmetic sales person. He wants to be more than he is, and will stop at nothing to get it. And when the mall and Brandi is being harassed by a serial "flasher" he swings into action to get capture him. Are you intrigued? Oh course not. Warning - This is in no way shape or form Paul Blart Mall Cop. If you did or didn't love that one, at least it was harmless, mindless fun.

OAR is a feeble attempt at social satire of our times. Everyone is on drugs, or a drunk, or struck with some kind of affliction that makes them a burden on society. Dark comedies too, are very hard to pull off. The mid-nineties Fargo is probably the most successful, and funny one in years. As a viewer you are to make some kind of sense and see some humor in tragic, or unreal circumstances. OAR is just flat out disturbing, not funny, and a complete waste of time. It's a waste of time for you, for Seth Rogan, and actually for anyone else who decides to go wade through this bottomless swamp.

It just doesn't work. No plot, with incessant, needless, offensive language, violence, very disturbing characters, glorified drug use with no real point or storyline at all. Seth Rogan to me has always been funny, even when I haven't liked the movies. Pineapple Express, and Zach Miri are two examples. Plus his voice work in the smash current hit Monsters VS. Aliens is terrific. What he was thinking here, I can't explain. Everyone gets a mulligan.

Observe And Report. This is Hollywood at its worst.