Present Tense: Observe and Report (2009)

The Film: Observe and Report (De Line Pictures, 2009). Directed by Jody Hill. Screenplay by Jody Hill. Starring Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Peña, Anna Faris, Collette Wolfe, The Yuan Brothers (John & Matt), Celia Weston. Running time: Somewhere around an hour and a half, but it felt like it was eighteen days long. 

The Quick and Dirty: The second mall cop movie of 2009 (the first being Paul Blart: Mall Cop), this movie is about a bipolar -- which, in this case, means borderline psychotic (sometimes not borderline at all) -- mall security officer played by Seth Rogen. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments in the film, but the movie is amazingly dark for a comedy. It's a great premise for a movie: The mall cop and the men under his command are in hot pursuit of a flasher who is showing off his goods in the mall parking lot. But the movie deviates a lot from the main storyline, showing a go-nowhere romance between Rogen and Anna Faris that is so unfunny it's painful. Genuinely talented actors such as Ray Liotta, Celia Weston and Michael Peña are, sadly, wasted in the film. The hilarious Yuan Brothers -- pudgy twins who play Rogen's subordinates -- steal all of the scenes they're in, and Collette Wolfe helps savage the parts of the film she's in as a genuinely sweet employee at a cinnamon bun joint. 

Why I Didn't Dig It: Hollywood has made one too many slapdash comedies (e.g., You Don't Mess with the Zohan, just about every movie with Anna Faris in it). Add Observe and Report to that list. The movie has a screenplay that sounds like it was written in less time than the actual running time of the movie. Observe and Report is much too grim for a comedy. Some people found the sex scene between Rogen and a drugged-up, passed-out Faris to be too crass (certain reviewers have referred to it as a "date rape" scene, although I wouldn't go that far). The Rogen/Faris sex scene did not bother me as much as the gratuitous violence throughout the film (Rogen and his fellow security guards bashing the hell out of skateboarders; Rogen blasting the unarmed flasher with a handgun). In the end, the movie just doesn't hold together and the funny moments are few and far between. And it proves that just because Seth Rogen is in it, that doesn't guarantee it's going to be funny.

Parting Shot: Maybe it's unfair to hold every Seth Rogen comedy to the standard set by the sidesplittingly hilarious Pineapple Express (2008). Rogen's successful collaborations with Judd Apatow -- The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up -- also set the bar very high. Give the guy a break. He's bound to make a dud once in a while. Grade: D+.