observe and report (2009)

observe and report, the second feature from apparently "hip" young thing jody hill, came with high praise indeed. i went to see it purely out of the comparisons to the work of paul shrader, but found nothing of any worth in the picture. it was boring, it said nothing and the comedy was appallingly judged. the really annoying thing was that if the film had been played completely straight, with a competent dramatic lead actor and without stupid wannabe-quirky asides (the sketch show-comedy drunk mother, asian twins and "gangsta" side kick especially) i think it would have been a successful attempt at a shrader-esque character study. the line towards the end spoken by the cop hiding in the cupboard along the lines of " i thought this was going to be funny, but its just sad" actually came very close to moving me, which is an incredible feat considering just how much i disliked the proceeding 90 minutes, and an indication of the direction the film could have taken. 

several online critics, well i say critics but im referring to the sort of folk that haunt aint it cool news and chud claim that observe and report is the sort of film that comes along every couple of years that slips through the radar of many, yet influences cinema in a deep manner (see fight club). this film wont be remembered, it wont have an effect on anything, it isnt clever in any way, its just a bad film. for the record, i didnt go expecting a judd apatow style comedy, i went because i heard it was a fairly removed piece of work, which was darker in tone and far more dramatic. had it been compared to apatow i wouldnt have gone near it, i hate that particular style of "comedy", and while i generally dislike seth rogen (although found him to be rather affable in monsters vs aliens), i gave everyone involved the benefit of the doubt upon hearing claims that it was the spiritual follow up to the likes of the king of comedy and even taxi driver! clearly i was wrong to do so.