Observe and Report (2009)

Lack of good storyline.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This movie is painful to watch and I requested my money back.This movie is not a comedy! Not because It's not funny----but because its written as some sort of hybrid fairytale about violence and crude behavior without consequences, and sticking it to authority.This movie is terrible because Seth Rogen's style is to make everything unnecessarily profane to the point of irrelevancy. There is one painful exchange in the film between Rogen and (guess who . . .) Aziz Ansari who was the poster boy for anti-descrimination in Muslim/Arab comedy before his lifestyle caught up with him. The dialogue? A full minute of the two screaming "F you" at one another in a crowded mall. Funny? No, its Seth Rogen at his finest, bringing non-mainstream behavior into popular film. I think whats happened with Seth's crew, and you can name them on two hands, is that they find THEMSELVES very funny and think that you should also . . . Its pathetic "bro humor of the worst kind" and completely worthless as a comedic plot device.This movie takes pride in being inaccurate and unrepresentative of Police, Mall security people, shoppers, managers, everyone cast in this movie, and, since its not a comedy, there's no reason for the stupid characterizations of the cast. I love Anna Faris. Ray Liotta is awesome. But I can't understand why they accepted the roles in this film! Neither is funny or acts true to life. There's so much wrong with this film, mostly in its depiction of violence with zero consequences. There are actual shootings and beatings committed by Rogen's character in this film, as a civilian. He assaults a squad of police, shoots a misdemeanor flasher/streaker in a store full of people, drinks and uses drugs on the job, allows his co-worker to steal thousands of dollars on the job, commits rape while his love interest is passed out, and yet, no consequences!Yet ,he is given a security guard position back after committing numerous felonies! Is it a comedy? No, and it doesn't try to be funny, just in your face about what's right and what's wrong.In this movie, every conventional mainstream behavior is filtered through Seth Rogen's world.That world is disgusting, clueless, and overbearing.

I've seen a lot of bad movies. Some are fun bad movies. Not this one. There really is nothing at all to like here. Start to finish bad movie with stupid characters, a dim plot, dialog that contains a million F bombs - if you can call it dialog...The only reason I gave it a 2 instead of a 1 is because of Michael Pena's character. He is at least mildly amusing. This movie also features total male frontal nudity, if you didn't see that noted elsewhere. And it is not an attractive male, so don't watch just for that. Don't watch for any reason. Unless maybe you want to punish yourself for some bad behavior or something.

This movie is very funny but the style and tone of the humor is pretty dark. If you can handle male nudity, jokes about mental illness, substance abuse and unusually graphic violence then you'll dig this movie. But if that Kevin James mall security guard film is more your style then this is not the mall security guard movie (I guess that's a genre now) for you. But if you like your coffee and your humor black then definitely check this out. Side note/warning: there is a scene that borders on rape that's played for laughs.

You have to admit that when you are watching most comedies there are a number of things that you have to overlook. Be it plot, plausibility, dialog, depth of purpose etc. One in a thousand comedies can be considered high brow art. I think the thing most critics missed in their analysis is that they didn't like Ronnie's many highly socially awkward moments. It makes the critics sense of sensibility go into crisis lock down mode then they hate it all. This film has a great plot (for a comedy), it has really exceptional cinematography, good social commentary. I did like how well they captured the grandiose nature of a type 1 bi-polar person with hilarious grand Hollywood style epic scenes. The cop fight, the skateboarder beat down/drug binge, shooting the flasher etc. also there were subtle things in the movie that were hilarious. Ronnie's detective board, the candid shots of people in the mall, looks that the flasher made during the chase. Normally I hate the moments of heart in comedies. But there were some good ones Especially with the cop in slicked back hair, the drunk mom and Ronnie at the end of the date.The film left me questioning my dreams and possible grandeur by showing how easy the social fabric of society can turn on you based on one conversation or bad relationship with one person. It also showed how many times those socially unacceptable conversations or situations can be irrelevant. I guess the critics can't handle that.