Report on "Observe"

If you would have told me ten years ago that Seth Rogan (one of the peripheral characters from the television shows Freaks And Geeks and Undeclared) would be one of the biggest comedy movie stars today, I’m not sure I would have believed you. [James Franco? Oh, sure. Martin Starr? Never thought he’d act again, much less anchor Knocked Up and Adventureland.]

And yet, here’s Seth Rogan in Observe And Report, a film that dares to make Rogan largely unlikable but still capable of eliciting laughs, a mainstream comedy star twisting that mainstream status quite winningly. The writer/director is Jody Hill, who made a similarly squirming comedic effort called The Foot Fist Way a few years ago, and while that film was embryonic and sporadically humorous, Observe And Report is a big professional step forward. The movie looks better, and the trade-up in star power (from FFW's Danny McBride to Rogan) works better for two reasons: it subverts our expectations of what Rogan will deliver, and Rogan’s a better actor than McBride. [See a rather emotional scene towards the end of the film, which gets profanely interrupted.]

There are several comedic pluses aside from Rogan (the reliable Anna Faris as the apotheosis of faux haute white trash, a darkly comic turn from Michael Peña) but the biggest bonus is the "win" at the end for Rogan's character Ronnie Barnhardt, as if Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver had a son who succeeded in his railings against society in ways that Travis could have only dreamed. And if you want a further metaphorical reach, you can also see a lot of America in Ronnie Barnhardt -- lethal, authoritarian, oddly likeable, a date rapist with compromised ideals and dark visions -- which might explain why this is Rogan's lowest grossing yet most layered box office product yet. But don't let that scare you away from the blackest comedy in years. Because if you don't watch it, Ronnie will be on your ass.