The audience's giggles cut to a cold, shocked silence. ""Oh no,"" a woman mumbles in horror, as we witness what appears to be a fairly graphic date rape. We see Ronnie sweatily humping the girl of his dreams as she lies unconscious beneath him, a dribble of puke running down the side of her pillow. And just as we become completely disgusted with him, Ronnie pauses, halting the display long enough for Brandi to take notice and yell, ""Why are you stopping motherfucker?""
""Observe and Report"" seems to be filmmaker Jody Hill's challenge to audience members—how long will you watch something awful and wait for it to become funny? The resulting film is cringe-inducing, horrifying and hilarious.
The female employees of the Forest Ridge Mall are under assault by a flashing pervert, a heinous crime seen by head of mall security Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) as nothing short of an act of terrorism. And when the flasher attacks Brandi (Anna Faris), aforementioned love of Ronnie's life who also happens to work at the makeup counter, he decides he needs to find the flasher before the police to finally get the girl and the glory he so desires. He confesses to his mother, who swills a bottle of rum as he speaks, ""This disgusting pervert may be the best thing that has ever happened to me.""
Imagine if the angry teenager Seth Rogen played on ""Freaks and Geeks"" grew up, went off his meds, hit the bottle hard and carried his daddy issues into an unhealthy love for firearms. That seems to be the genesis of Ronnie Barnhardt—a character whose only humor is his absurdity. Rogen displays the finest acting of his career, transforming his usual cuddly stoner to a Ritalin-popping sadist.
Ronnie's would-be lover Brandi is a stuck-up bimbo who can barely string a sentence together, and instead seems to focus most of her brain power on scoring free pills or booze. She's played by Faris as brilliantly unlikeable, which makes Ronnie's obsession with her that much more ridiculous.
The cast is rounded out with some stellar bit parts that sell the world of the mall as morally bankrupt—Patton Oswalt as a store manager who mocks his disabled employee and Aziz Ansari as a sleazy kiosk salesman, who steals the show when he rebuts Ronnie's racist accusations of terrorism against him. Somehow, the flasher ends up being one of the more wholesome characters in the film.
The look of the film matches Ronnie's sadistic violence, a gritty and realistic cinematography that allows the violence of the film to achieve maximum effect. As someone who cut their teeth in filmmaking by recording martial arts demonstrations, Jody Hill knows how to film a fight. We feel the impact of every hit and cringe when a skateboard connects with the head of a teenager fleeing Ronnie's excessive force.
That seems to be the mantra of the film-—excessive force. Horrible, corrupt characters hitting us with blunt force jokes for 90 minutes. It's offensive, and at times cruel, but after that awkward few seconds of disgust, you'll still be laughing.
Grade: A
