Observe and Report
Observe and Report has Vancouver’s Seth Rogen hopping down the gross-out trail again this Easter weekend as Ronnie Barnhardt, a man with no filters. He constantly laments the foot dragging by management to allow firearms for guards at the mall where he is head of security (which by the way gives you an idea of the calibre of his underlings if he represents a step up). He lives with his mother (Celia Weston who perfectly deadpans all the best lines) and has a crush on the vacuous blonde in cosmetics, Brandi (Anna Faris who gives a clinic on vacuous blondeness). When a mall crime wave of perverts and thieves hits hard Ronnie gets involved in a turf war with Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) which causes Ronnie to push back with an invasion of cop territory. Being released so soon after Paul Blart: Mall Cop might lead you to believe that 2009 is the year to lampoon shopping centre security but by comparison Observe and Report is a lot edgier and funnier – with a caution. This comedy treads as lightly as it can around the topic of its principal character having a bipolar disorder but there are still times when that reality makes things feel like they’ve gone too far. That’s my observation, duly reported.