Movie Review – Observe and Report

Observe and Report (2009)
Written & Directed by Jody Hill

In 2009, America got two mall cop movies. In January, the Kevin James vehicle Paul Blart, Mall Cop was released, and just a few months later, in April, Observe and Report dropped in theaters. At the time, this film was unfairly maligned and lumped in with Paul Blart. On the surface, they share a lot of elements but are ultimately vastly different movies with very different perspectives on law enforcement. Observe and Report is a film that full-throatedly yells, “All Cops Are Bastards,” and rightfully so. Police were not brought into existence to protect the ordinary person. They were an alliance made between those with systemic power and violent organized gangs with the express purpose of protecting private property. The misconception that police exist to watch over communities and spare them from harm is a myth that is proven false day after day. This isn’t about what a nice guy your cop uncle is or how the policeman gave you a lollipop when you were growing up. Those are anecdotal and ultimately irrelevant. ACAB is about the actual role of police in our societies and how they employ state-sanctioned violence to keep the populace virtually enslaved.

Ronnie (Seth Rogen) takes his job as the head of security at Forest Ridge Mall very seriously. The mall cop believes everything he does is with good intent, but as the story unfolds, we learn Ronnie is a profoundly troubled man experiencing bipolar disorder and violent ideation that leads him down a dark path. Did I mention this is a comedy? It is but certainly a dark one. It’s not that Ronnie has these mental health issues that are the problem; they are not being treated, and his support network is made up of people encouraging his behavior. The film’s primary focus is to catch an anonymous flasher who runs around exposing himself to female customers and employees. After numerous incidents, including a robbery, the local police get involved in the form of Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta). The two clash immediately as both men see the other interfering in their investigation.

Ronnie also strikes up a fling with make-up counter clerk Brandi (Anna Faris), a woman who likes to drink and consume pills. She reluctantly agrees to hang out with Ronnie but finds the date is not a total waste when he lets her take some of his prescriptions so she can get high. They have sex; well, he has sex with Brandi while she is semi-unconscious. It’s all disconcerting and ratchets up more and more. Harrison tries to harm Ronnie by dumping him in a bad neighborhood during a ride-along, only to see the Mall Cop return to the station after nearly murdering a group of men who accost him. Ronnie’s only family is his mother (Celia Weston), an equally troubled person who shares far too much of her personal life with her son and is no stranger to drinking.

There’s this recurring reaction from Americans to movies that break from traditional structures & archetypes. This reaction is that the portrayal of an act on the screen, regardless of context, is an implicit endorsement of said act. This is a genuinely moronic way to engage with art. It speaks to a mind that sees things only on the most basic surface level, rejecting metaphor, satire, or any device that allows an artist to experiment. It shouldn’t be a surprise when you look at the cultural roots of America, repressive Calvinism that framed any deviation from the personal preferences of patriarchal clergy as “sin.” Anyone who thinks Jody Hill admires Ronnie must take an English 101 course to understand storytelling. If Hill is sympathetic towards Ronnie, it is a disgusted pity.

I would argue that Observe and Report is one of the most criminally misunderstood films of the late 2000s, a picture far ahead in examining policing as ineffective and ultimately destructive to everyone involved. Its biggest flaw is that it follows the rhythms of the Apatow era comedies with too much improv and a plot that can become sloppy. Unlike those movies, this one isn’t afraid to honestly unpack how fucking awful men can be while not blaming them for all of it. Mental illness is a major social problem rarely dealt with constructively in the States, especially regarding men. Ronnie isn’t some exception; I found him to be very typical of many men I have interacted with, deeply insecure about themselves and performing masculinity awkwardly to try and compensate. 

Instead of pulling punches and softening the jokes, Hill isn’t afraid to present near horror movie levels of violence on screen. You laugh out of shock, but never once was I rooting for Ronnie. By showing how quick Ronnie is to break someone’s leg or shoot them, we’re just being shown how the police brain works. A casual glimpse at news stories from America over the last handful of years proves this movie isn’t exaggerating. Cops really seem to love shooting people, or they are the biggest cowards in the world and shoot at anything that lightly spooks them. This film also led me to recall the faux outrage around the 2020 protests when you had cops complaining on social media that they weren’t being catered to by fast food service workers. My favorite of these was the Florida cop who claimed a McDonald’s worker took a bite from his chicken sandwich and later said he forgot it was himself who bit into the sandwich. Whether he lied initially or is truly so stupid that he forgot he bit into his own sandwich, either explanation doesn’t prove that cops are the best of us in any way.

Observe and Report is a pitch-perfect character study of those types of men you see at school board meetings ranting about transgender people or marching with their fellow chuds (masked, of course), claiming they want to take the country back. They are about the most pathetic form of man you could find, not necessarily all their fault. They came up in a nation where the education system and the mass media intentionally fed them a false bill of goods about who they were in juxtaposition to non-white straight cis men. There’s a problem with that, though, called human enlightenment and advancement. Most of us want things to become less volatile and for our society to be open to everyone. But when you have been fed a diet of “there’s only so much freedom to go around” and you are part of the “in group,” your reaction is to become violent to protect what you have been conditioned to see as yours.

Paul Blart is a movie about softening this type of guy and making you root for him without being honest about what he’s really like. Observe and Report is the mirror opposite, displaying this embarrassing oaf without trying to make him sympathetic. But I do like that Detective Harrison is also shown to be an asshole; he’s better at managing his behavior, yet still not much better than Ronnie. It’s not a film about cops exclusively; it’s about toxic masculinity. If you are a guy like Ronnie and have some self-awareness, you will see how others see you and your behavior. That could really sting, but it is something we need more of in the media, honesty about the absurdity of “being a man” via these absurd perspectives that don’t know the first thing about actually being a man.