Observe and Report. It's... A Movie.

Proverbial They will never, ever drink enough to enjoy this film. Actually, PT doesn't think there's enough liquor on the Western seaboard to make that happen.

Going into this screening, the I thought, hey, big dumb mall cop movie (didn't we see this roughly two weeks ago when it was called Paul Blart?), whatever. But hey, better than doing taxes, right?

Oh no, not better than doing taxes. Elective dental surgery would have been preferable to this piece of crap, which Rotten Tomato critics have lauded as wonderfully cutting edge and delightfully twisted. Which just makes me think, Jesus, I don't want to sit next to you sticky-palmed fuck-ups in any movie theater ever again. And not just because of the sticky palms.

But then again, I am not evolved enough to realize the brilliance of this dialogue exchange.

MALL WORKER
Fuck you!

MALL COP RONNIE
Fuck you!

MALL WORKER
Fuck you!

MALL COP RONNIE
Fuck you!

Okay, you get the idea, but that went on for what felt like forever but was probably a few minutes. Brilliant! Insightful! Best dialogue I've heard in ages! What the fuck is wrong with people? I thought the drooling dunderheadedness of Idiocracy was supposed to take place in a distant future. But hey, with this economy maybe we're spiraling down the drain at a higher speed, who knows.

If you haven't heard, the writer/director's vision was essentially Taxi Driver but funny. Ha ha ha! Travis Bickle, what a CARD! That blank-eyed look Robert De Niro has as he blows away the pimps, MAN, that just cracks my ass up! Ha ha ha! Jodi Foster, what a sassy little child prostitute!

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm a PC prude or anything. George Carlin making rape jokes, bring it on. But this movie just isn't funny. Or particularly coherent. I guess I should just be happy it was in focus. It's the little things.

But I digress. The story, which rambles like a one-legged drunk trying to find his car at 2 a.m., revolves around Ronnie, played with bearman bravado by Seth Rogan. This rent-a-cop has delusions of grandeur, like most numbskulls with a little power to exert. Except he's one step away from a Columbine blow-out and actually owns the artillery to do the job. Ha ha ha! That's FUNNY.

Ronnie goes from goofy to borderline psychotic and back again from scene to scene, and I honestly didn't know if the movie would end in an orgy of violence, with Ronnie slitting throats and drinking blood, or a goofy aw-shucks, local kid makes good schmaltzfest. There's just no way of knowing. It's really THAT uneven.

Ronnie is on a quest to catch a flasher at the mall (expect a lot of fat, middle-aged guy penis flopping around -- gotta earn that R!), then he's on a quest to become a cop. Guess how that works out. There are various twists and turns, none of which make a hell of a lot of sense. The director creates a world that seems to mirror reality, except when he wants to ditch it in favor of a superhero-esque battle to the death. Watch an unarmed Ronnie take down a bunch of gun-toting gangbangers! Watch Ronnie take on a phalanx of cops who would be well within their rights to shoot his ass, but don't! And poor Ronnie gets a black eye, boo. Ronnie is supposedly delusional, but I think the writer-director was half off his meds, too.

But hey, for anyone craving cutting edge comedy, this movie is chock full of it. You'll love the scene where Ronnie's finally realizing his dream of having sex with the make-up counter chick, who's mostly unconscious and threw up on the pillow a little bit, but GO RONNIE! Wow, that's a scream.

But Observe and Report is not a total wash. Anna Faris manages to eke out some humor, as does Celia Weston as Ronnie's alcoholic mom (I did actually smile when she tells Ronnie she's finally ready to make a change... by switching to beer). And there is that in focus thing.

PROVERBIAL THEY SAYS: If you're a fledgling mass murderer with bipolar disorder looking for a good time, check it out! The rest of you can stay home and watch something that doesn't suck.