OBSERVE AND REPORT

Observe and Report does get one thing pitch-perfect: the self-contained microcosm that is the shopping mall.

Having worked at an espresso bar in a mall for almost three years, I could totally relate to the weird insular world of the characters in this movie, with their gossip, their boredom, their random hook-ups, and those moments of shopping mall drama ("Did you hear about the flasher in the parking lot?!?!?") that rips through all mall-employee gossip-channels like wildfire.

Seth Rogen plays Ronnie, a mall security guard (no, not exactly a mall cop—they don't get to carry guns, just tasers, and drive around the parking lot fiercely in electric carts). He takes his job very seriously and dreams of one day becoming a real cop. Suddenly opportunity seems to present itself in a flash. Well, a flasher, actually. A flasher is exposing himself (via the classic trenchcoat plus shoes and socks outfit) in the mall parking lot, and the line is crossed when his latest victim is Ronnie's biggest mall-crush, the cosmetics counter girl Brandi (Anna Faris). When Ronnie's case gets bumped up to the local police force detective (Ray Liotta), Ronnie sets out with something to prove: he can catch the flasher before the cops, and justice will be served!

Rogen's Ronnie is a very believable (albeit off-his-rocker) character. Raise your hand if you've known someone at some time in your life with delusions of bad-assery grandeur. You know, a guy (always a guy) who crows about his fighting skills, nun-chuck skills, smackdown skills, and how he could truly f**k someone up with his vigilant violence if just given half the chance. This is also the same guy that doesn't pass the pyschological test for getting into the police academy (but in the case of the guy I knew, ended up joining the military as his second choice... grrrrrreat).

And also raise your hand if you've known a party-girl like Anna Faris' hilarious Brandi. She's the co-worker that talks and laughs too loud about her drinking and hook-up exploits. She wears too much makeup and disdains the hangers-on that she deems too uncool to hang out with. But if you ply her with drinks, she'll be your best friend (for the night, at least).

But despite these great characters, Observe and Report kind of staggers around, unable to get any sort of momentum. I imagine the screenwriter actually wrote the script while working whatever low-paying, dead-end job at the mall himself. Much of it is kind of funny, with the "ahhh... yes..." recognition from people like me who have worked in such an environment. But between all those moments is a kind of dead space, like you could wander away from the Hot Dog on a Stick and not miss much.

The world of mall employees deserves to be recognized and represented with its own cult film like Office Space, because, believe me, the material is all right there and ripe for the picking. Alas, Observe and Report isn't funny enough or memorable enough to give it a shelf life beyond the latest JC Penney clearance sale.