Director: Jody Hill
Starring: Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Peña, Anna Faris
In Cinemas: 14 May 2009
Observe and Report is not your father’s ‘Seth Rogen Comedy’, and by father I mean you, because Seth Rogen isn’t that old.
My first piece of advice would be to forget everything you’ve seen in the trailers. Writer/director Jody Hill has no intention of giving us the silly, feel good movie that’s being advertised all over our TVs. Yes, this is a dark comedy, but it’s also a deep character study, an acknowledgement of the clichéd ‘underdog’ story and a satire all rolled into one.
Rogen’s character Ronnie Barnhardt – a mall Cop who dreams of becoming a police officer, serving justice and getting the gorgeous girl – is not immediately likeable (and some will argue that he never is). He doesn’t cough up jokes filled with pop culture references, his appearance isn’t charming and he utters the now famous ‘Rogen laugh’ maybe once or twice during the entire film. In fact, Ronnie is pretty much the opposite of almost every character that Rogen has played.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of Seth’s work. I think the guy is hilarious, but it was beginning to look like he would be type cast for the rest of his career…as himself.
The audience in my theatre was laughing at every line Rogen uttered for the first ten minutes of the film. It didn’t take long however, for them to quiet down as the story progressed and became a lot darker. Sure, there were plenty of laughs to be had throughout the rest of the film, but they were nervous and uncomfortable for the most part.
Jody Hill seems to be thriving on those awkward feelings. As the runtime grows, so too does Ronnie’s insanity. It’s revealed that he suffers from a mental illness, and many critics have assumed that the film is therefore making light of such a condition. I totally disagree. Hill is doing nothing more than presenting us with a disturbed character and letting us, the viewers, judge his actions. It’s just a lot harder to take when a so called “crazy” character is in a comedy.
Likewise a certain date-rape scene has been at the centre of much (un-needed) controversy. Again, the scene is not there to advocate such an action but is simply presenting us with another insight into the character’s mind. Hill is pushing the audience, daring us to question Ronnie’s motives.
By the way, I don’t want to give the impression that Ronnie is pure evil, he isn’t. Fundamentally, he’s an innocent guy who believes in good triumphing over evil and true love…he just doesn’t know how these concepts work in the ‘real world’. By the end of the film I found myself still rooting for his character despite all of his flaws.Stylistically, Observe and Report is both a homage and a satire of cop/action films, mixed with a little indie drama. Because of this, music will stop quite suddenly, supporting characters will sometimes overact (an aspect which I did not like) and on a couple of occasions, characters were looking right at the camera. This self awareness never becomes too much though and only drew me out of the film a couple of times.
I think we’ve all met people like Ronnie Barnhardt. Those guys and gals who create their own self importance, who build it up so much that they start to believe it themselves. Often it only takes a slight nudge to bring them back to the cold truth of reality.
In fact, we’re all a little like that. Who wants to acknowledge that their job isn’t so great? That maybe they’ve spent the majority of their lives wasting their time?
While Observe and Report takes this kind of thinking to the extreme, giving us over the top situations and characters, I believe it offers a fascinating insight into the way such a mind can work. I’d love to see Hill and Rogen re-team sometime in the future.
