During one of those Three Stooges life retrospectives that pop up now and again on TV, I remember the narrator (don't remember his name) remarking about Curly Howard: "Nobody likes him except the public." I think this observation applies to actor Kevin James as well. He may never become the darling of uppity, sophisticated, "cultured" critics, especially if he continues pursuing "Lovable Schlump" roles. But to the hoi polloi (regular folks), James perfectly embodies that endearing eternal underdog everyman determined to succeed no matter how many detractors he has, how many faults he has, and how many obstacles life puts in his way. This explains why his latest movie, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2" (hereafter "Blart 2") is confounding those disdainful critics with an unexpected, initial, 3-week box office take that has already twice recouped its $30 million budget, which by definition makes this movie a hit.
In the first "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" movie, Blart (Kevin James) rises above his limitations to successfully defend a mall from, and eventually capture, an acrobatic band of thieves. In "Blart 2", the sequel, Blart has fashioned a noteworthy 6-year mall cop career (in spite of the headaches he receives from ungrateful customers he helps). Therefore, he feels confident that he will be chosen as the main speaker at a mall cop convention taking place in Las Vegas.
However a series of set-backs, both self-inflicted and beyond his control, gradually seems to erode his self-esteem. Checking into a Vegas hotel with his radiant, sensible, and comfortably confident daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez), Blart makes a self-conscious, clumsy, insecure fool of himself before Divina Martinez, the hotel general manager. He both annoys, and yet fascinates, Divina by boasting about his mall cop abilities and the desire Divina MUST be feeling for him. Blart also embarrasses and frustrates Maya with his obsessive overprotectiveness and suspicion towards her love interest, Lane (David Henrie) – a product of his fear of loneliness since his divorce six years ago. Worst of all, Blart learns that he was not chosen to be the mall cop convention main speaker. Finally, adding injury and insult to injury, an exotic crane-like bird kicks the crap out of him while he tries to seek solitude and pull himself together.
Then dangerous things start to happen. While attending a party with Lance at an abandoned hotel suite, Maya accidentally opens a door to the adjoining suite, which happens to be occupied by fine art thieves led by the well-groomed, ruthless Vincent (Neal McDonough). Vincent holds both Maya and Lane hostage. Maya tries to contact her dad by cellphone, but Paul glumly ignores her calls both because of the main speaker slight and because Maya had earlier told him to leave her alone. But fate also has some good things in store for Paul. The main speaker has become drunk and incapacitated, so Paul is asked to substitute. After a faltering start, he manages to give an inspirational speech about why mall cops are needed. Maya's resourcefulness and scientific ingenuity finally manage to warn her dad about the danger she's in. As a result, Paul slowly gets his act together as he combines his own MacGyver-like scientific smarts, his killer Segway-riding ability, the help of his heroic fellow mall cop attendees Donna Ericone (Loni Love), Nick Manero (Nicholas Turturro), and Saul Gundermutt (Gary Valenture), and his fatherly determination to save his daughter to track down and confront Vincent's international, professional criminals.
You could have a field day shredding apart "Blart 2"'s improbable storyline, ludicrous coincidences, and juvenile slapstick (e.g. Vincent and his team being found out by a teenager, Blart surviving a horse's kick). However, in my opinion, even at his bullheaded, maladroit worst, and even when you are cracking up at his predicament, Kevin James's Blart keeps you rooting for him, because he is fighting a world that thinks that he's no good to prove, after all, that he has the proper stuff to be a worthwhile father, mall cop, and man. If Blart, the "underest" of underdogs, can beat the odds (and without uttering any profanity or resorting to preaching), then the rest of us can overcome our personal shortcomings and triumph.
P.S.: In the Sunday, April 12, 2015 edition of Parade magazine, Kevin James's own article "Underdogs" explains how his Paul Blart character parallels and reflects his own resolve to overcome his hard-knock life to become a noted standup comedian and TV/movie actor.
In the first "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" movie, Blart (Kevin James) rises above his limitations to successfully defend a mall from, and eventually capture, an acrobatic band of thieves. In "Blart 2", the sequel, Blart has fashioned a noteworthy 6-year mall cop career (in spite of the headaches he receives from ungrateful customers he helps). Therefore, he feels confident that he will be chosen as the main speaker at a mall cop convention taking place in Las Vegas.
However a series of set-backs, both self-inflicted and beyond his control, gradually seems to erode his self-esteem. Checking into a Vegas hotel with his radiant, sensible, and comfortably confident daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez), Blart makes a self-conscious, clumsy, insecure fool of himself before Divina Martinez, the hotel general manager. He both annoys, and yet fascinates, Divina by boasting about his mall cop abilities and the desire Divina MUST be feeling for him. Blart also embarrasses and frustrates Maya with his obsessive overprotectiveness and suspicion towards her love interest, Lane (David Henrie) – a product of his fear of loneliness since his divorce six years ago. Worst of all, Blart learns that he was not chosen to be the mall cop convention main speaker. Finally, adding injury and insult to injury, an exotic crane-like bird kicks the crap out of him while he tries to seek solitude and pull himself together.
Then dangerous things start to happen. While attending a party with Lance at an abandoned hotel suite, Maya accidentally opens a door to the adjoining suite, which happens to be occupied by fine art thieves led by the well-groomed, ruthless Vincent (Neal McDonough). Vincent holds both Maya and Lane hostage. Maya tries to contact her dad by cellphone, but Paul glumly ignores her calls both because of the main speaker slight and because Maya had earlier told him to leave her alone. But fate also has some good things in store for Paul. The main speaker has become drunk and incapacitated, so Paul is asked to substitute. After a faltering start, he manages to give an inspirational speech about why mall cops are needed. Maya's resourcefulness and scientific ingenuity finally manage to warn her dad about the danger she's in. As a result, Paul slowly gets his act together as he combines his own MacGyver-like scientific smarts, his killer Segway-riding ability, the help of his heroic fellow mall cop attendees Donna Ericone (Loni Love), Nick Manero (Nicholas Turturro), and Saul Gundermutt (Gary Valenture), and his fatherly determination to save his daughter to track down and confront Vincent's international, professional criminals.
You could have a field day shredding apart "Blart 2"'s improbable storyline, ludicrous coincidences, and juvenile slapstick (e.g. Vincent and his team being found out by a teenager, Blart surviving a horse's kick). However, in my opinion, even at his bullheaded, maladroit worst, and even when you are cracking up at his predicament, Kevin James's Blart keeps you rooting for him, because he is fighting a world that thinks that he's no good to prove, after all, that he has the proper stuff to be a worthwhile father, mall cop, and man. If Blart, the "underest" of underdogs, can beat the odds (and without uttering any profanity or resorting to preaching), then the rest of us can overcome our personal shortcomings and triumph.
P.S.: In the Sunday, April 12, 2015 edition of Parade magazine, Kevin James's own article "Underdogs" explains how his Paul Blart character parallels and reflects his own resolve to overcome his hard-knock life to become a noted standup comedian and TV/movie actor.