Observe and Report Review

Jody Hill makes no attempt to be liked, and critics split hard on whether that is bravery or a dead end. The defenders read it as an American character study in the Taxi Driver line, with Rogen giving the most committed performance of his career as a man whose self image and behavior have completely uncoupled. The dread is real, the mall is shot as a fluorescent purgatory, and Michael Pena and Ray Liotta are excellent in small, mean parts. The rejection is louder.

The film asks for laughter at a manic episode, at a beating, and most damagingly at a sex scene with a barely conscious woman that is staged as a joke and then defended with a single line, and a large share of reviewers found that indefensible rather than provocative. Anna Faris is stranded playing a caricature. Even sympathetic critics concede the film has no idea how to end, and the closing act rewards Ronnie for exactly the behavior it spent an hour diagnosing. What is left is a fearless performance in search of a movie with the nerve to actually condemn its subject rather than crown him.