Observe and Report (Blu-ray)

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Amazing, isn't it, how often different Hollywood studios release essentially the same films at the same time? Think of "A Bug's Life" and "Antz" or "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" or the two Truman Capote films, or any number of others. I mean, what are the odds of two screenwriters simultaneously coming up with the idea of a comedy about shopping-mall guards? It's just a coincidence, I guess, that 2009 saw "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" and "Observe and Report" within months of each other. And need I mention that both of them are pretty lame?

Both movies feature unlikely heroes, oafish dunces, really, losers who distinguish themselves almost through sheer accident. The big difference, though, is that while the "Paul Blart" movie is fairly tame, even gentle, "Observe and Report" is crude and harsh, their ratings--PG and R--summing up their tone. Now, you would think the R content might have provided a needed edge sorely missing from the rather bland "Paul Blart" film, yet "Observe and Report" is merely smutty for the sake of smut. And it's not even good high-definition smut.

Jody Hill wrote and directed "Observe and Report," his first major film since doing the low-budget comedy "The Foot Fist Way" in 2006. Since I didn't care for the earlier picture, I didn't have high hopes for this next one. It didn't surprise me, either, that the major difference between them is the slicker-looking appearance of "Observe and Report," coming as it did on an $18,000,000 budget, which is probably about 18,000,000 times more money than Hill spent on "The Foot Fist Way."

As his star, Hill got Seth Rogen, one of 2009's comic actors du jour. I like Rogen; he most often projects a sweet, Everyman disposition, a good comedian's subtle timing, and an appropriately droll reaction to outrageous situations. I especially liked his work in "The 40 Year Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," and "The Pineapple Express." But comic actors have their ups and downs, if you remember ones like Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy falling into recent decline. In "Observe and Report," Rogen does what he can but doesn't get any help from a script that goes straight for the lowest-possible laughs.

It's hard to tell just what kind of humor Hill was going for in "Observe and Report." It's a dark, witless comedy that uses anything it can to get a rise from its audience, mostly relying on foul language to do the trick, even when there's no need for it. Does Hill really believe that having his characters repeat the f-word 800 times a minute is funny? Or that two adults facing down one another with the epithets "F... you!," "No, f... you" over and over again is at all amusing?

Not that there aren't any laughs. The opening montage of "typical" mall shoppers gives us a hint of what the film could have been, with shots of shoplifters, obese couples eating ice cream, greedy raffle players, and kids fighting. Rogen plays Ronnie Barnhardt, the head of mall security, overseeing all of this with an air of supremely smug and misplaced authority. After that, unfortunately, it's all downhill.

Ronnie is a clod, a delusional idiot who lives with his alcoholic mother (Celia Weston). How he got a job as a security guard at all, let alone head of security, is anybody's guess. He's clearly angry at being a nobody, and the badge and uniform go to his head, making him think of himself as somebody important. His answer to any problem is to yell, curse, punch, or shoot, occasionally at the same time, and any number of scenes involve him beating people up, smashing skateboarders across the face with their own skateboards, or taking out squads of druggies, hoodlums, and even city policemen in almost surrealistic sequences of intensely unfunny violence. I have no idea why the filmmakers thought this Neanderthal was humorous, and Rogen can do nothing to make the mean-spirited jerk likable.

As the movie begins, we see a foulmouthed flasher annoying mall patrons and upsetting Ronnie no end, although, perhaps as a part of the movie's bizarre nature, Ronnie's language is just as obscene as the flasher's. In fact, Ronnie can't utter a complete sentence without an f-word, even when the local TV station interviews him about the pervert. What's more, profane rap lyrics accompany most of the action, so if words offend you, beware.