Observe and Report A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - R It's 1:25 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

Let’s just say the story of “Observe and Report” is all over the freakin’ place.  Here are the basics.

Seth Rogen is Ronnie.  He’s the head of mall security and likes to shoot a gun, only he’s not allowed to have a gun as mall security.  He also has the hots for Brandi (Anna Faris), a dudette at the cosmetics counter who wants nothing to do with him.  That’s not Ronnie’s only problem because the mall has a couple of issues of its own, namely a flasher tormenting women in the parking lot, and someone robbing stores in the mall in darkness of night.   As such, after another streaking incident, enter Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) who seems indifferent to actually catching the flasher, let alone the thief, because, after all, it’s only the mall.  Ronnie, at first, can’t stand the good Detective because he’s impeding on his territory, but then as Ronnie’s dreams of getting into the academy begin to grow, Harrison might be his ticket to the big time.

And in the meantime, some good-natured comedy is taking place, which, sure, is adult in nature (although the non-joke of Brandi seemingly passed-out on liquor and drugs while Ronnie has his way with her is disturbing, with the film folks seeming to justify it with Brandi commenting “Why are you stopping?” as the way to say it is okay, even though it’s not), but then, Ronnie finds out he can’t get into the police academy.  Enter some twisted drug use, Ronnie losing his mind, the movie taking a severely dark turn, and I’m losing every sense of fun I was having for the first two-thirds of the film.

Then, out of nowhere, in the depths of despair, a ray of sunshine returns back to Ronnie’s life, brought about by Nell (Collette Wolfe), and hilarity returns in the form of expectedness (sort of), and unexpected shockness that made me laugh my ass off. I'm not elaborating so as not to ruin the surprise.

I wanted to like “Observe and Report” a hell of a lot more than I did, but the dark period of the movie just really took me out of the fun I was having and into a “What the hell?” mode that I really didn’t care for.  Happily the ending brought me a ton of glee, but it wasn’t totally enough to save the movie because I have to warn you to be utterly prepared for some utter weirdness.  I like Seth Rogan, thought he was doing a great job until his character went off the deep end; Anna Faris is always one of my favorites, although with her not getting naked the film-folks had to come up with a simple snapping of a picture in the ladies changing room for your female nudity, and Celia Weston as Ronnie’s drunk mother was great.  And ladies, you will get your fill of dude frontal, because, after all, part of the storyline is about a flasher.

“Observe and Report” had the potential for a 4 ½ stars comedy in my book, but the dark turn lost a lot, almost dropping the movie under 2 stars.  Luckily the ending brought it all together, so I’ll kick it up to 3 ½ stars out of 5.  It’s not really necessary to see this movie in the theater, though, and probably best viewed with a bunch of your buddies while you’re having some pizza and beer on a Saturday night while the ladies are out watching something girly.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!