Viewer beware: Comedy doesn't get much darker than OBSERVE AND REPORT, and Seth Rogen fans looking for the treacle naughtiness of another Judd Apatow film are in for quite a shock. Not at all to be confused with its country cousin Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the crowd-pleaser that was released theatrically a month prior, Observe is nothing less than writer-director Jody Hill's skewering of modern loser life and, specifically, a look at the nifty weapons of social pathology used at Forest Ridge Mall to get one up in it.

Mall security chief Ronnie Barnhardt can't seem to put a foot right. Upstaged professionally by real cop Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) during a sex-flasher investigation, he's equally inept at talking to his dream girl Brandi (Anna Faris), the gorgeous blonde bombshell behind the cosmetics counter. Stuck at a career plateau with his loyal crew of misfits and seeing life through a fishbowl, he's often left free to think aloud, as he does when trying to pass a police psychology qualifier--offering a glimpse into mental terrain as cragged and pitted as Middle-earth. His whole future would seem to hinge on catching Forest Hill's terrorizing flasher.

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