Comedy's got hope ... and that hope is Director/Writer Jody Hill.
The insane. Sometimes, through a directness of purpose, through the drive and desire to make a thing happen in life, the insane might seem sane or even become heroic. After all, it is the American dream to chase what we want until the end of the Earth, against all odds. These are the people we idolize. The Rocky Balboas, the physically handicapped who go on to win Olympic medals, the poor kid from the slums who goes on to build a thriving business or achieve success in a sport. On a comedic level, when Will Ferrell portrays a redneck NASCAR driver who has father issues, we root for him to win the final championship.
OBSERVE AND REPORT is a brilliant movie in some respects. Sure, it's funny, but it's the first comedy that I've seen, possibly ever, that offers up the other side to what growing up in a deranged, redneck household could do to someone. Seth Rogen's character has a drunken mother who passes out on him all the time, a father who walked out on them, and he has a wall filled with swords and weaponry. But while OAR plays this for laughs, the hero isn't a Ricky Bobby. He's not a bumbler. He's not a goofy but lovable oaf. Rogen's character is simply insane.
And then the movie makes us root for the psychopath, and it makes it easy, even funny to do so. We laugh when the hero date-rapes a girl. We laugh when he smashes police officers in the face with a flashlight or does coke, then cracks into teenagers with their own skateboards. This is way past the black comedy of BAD SANTA (another favorite of mine). This is the kinda movie that will make a liberal elitist feel like a dirty whore after watching.
I guess that's why a lot of critics hated this film, but I think it's because they're disconnected from the idea that people like Ronnie (Seth Rogen) actually exist. I've known people like that my whole life. They're hilarious, but cannot be contained in a punchline or slapstick comedy routine. They're funny because they're really here and walking among us, and you just know that those children are going to grow up and rob a bank or get addicted to drugs.
The laughs in OAR come from that perverse side of the tracks. People who laugh at dead baby jokes aren't laughing 100% because of the construct of the joke, ya know? They're laughing because the humor makes others feel uncomfortable. Like BORAT before it, OAR takes people out of the movie-viewing experience into a place where they're questioning their own sensibilities: "Did I just laugh at a guy raping someone?" It also is filled with a cast who are failures and blowouts, like Bill Clinton's redneck brother - the guy who reminded us that at least genetically-speaking, Clinton himself was part cornball retard. And as Ben Folds once said, "You just can't escape your redneck past." Unlike BORAT, however, OAR is begging us to laugh AT (unapologetically) the central character's terrible life. It wants us to point fingers and guffaw. It's Jerry Springer on the big screen! That is, in my opinion, this movie's biggest triumph, a Swiftian kick in the pants to polite society. We movie-goers are so used to trying to relate and sympathize with characters and that might be funniest joke of all. Seeing critics grappling with their inability to "like" Rogen's character.
A delusion, a satire - OBSERVE AND REPORT is many things, and I won't say that it succeeds on all levels. In fact, I'll go ahead and say that the last two minutes, the two minutes that come after the insane blunt-force trauma of the climax, are pandering and lame. Had this movie ended differently, it'd rank higher on the chain. But OAR is a massive success during its other 84 minutes of run time, anyway.
Jody Hill's got a vision, a talent, and I hope he keeps getting supported.
The insane. Sometimes, through a directness of purpose, through the drive and desire to make a thing happen in life, the insane might seem sane or even become heroic. After all, it is the American dream to chase what we want until the end of the Earth, against all odds. These are the people we idolize. The Rocky Balboas, the physically handicapped who go on to win Olympic medals, the poor kid from the slums who goes on to build a thriving business or achieve success in a sport. On a comedic level, when Will Ferrell portrays a redneck NASCAR driver who has father issues, we root for him to win the final championship.
OBSERVE AND REPORT is a brilliant movie in some respects. Sure, it's funny, but it's the first comedy that I've seen, possibly ever, that offers up the other side to what growing up in a deranged, redneck household could do to someone. Seth Rogen's character has a drunken mother who passes out on him all the time, a father who walked out on them, and he has a wall filled with swords and weaponry. But while OAR plays this for laughs, the hero isn't a Ricky Bobby. He's not a bumbler. He's not a goofy but lovable oaf. Rogen's character is simply insane.
And then the movie makes us root for the psychopath, and it makes it easy, even funny to do so. We laugh when the hero date-rapes a girl. We laugh when he smashes police officers in the face with a flashlight or does coke, then cracks into teenagers with their own skateboards. This is way past the black comedy of BAD SANTA (another favorite of mine). This is the kinda movie that will make a liberal elitist feel like a dirty whore after watching.
I guess that's why a lot of critics hated this film, but I think it's because they're disconnected from the idea that people like Ronnie (Seth Rogen) actually exist. I've known people like that my whole life. They're hilarious, but cannot be contained in a punchline or slapstick comedy routine. They're funny because they're really here and walking among us, and you just know that those children are going to grow up and rob a bank or get addicted to drugs.
The laughs in OAR come from that perverse side of the tracks. People who laugh at dead baby jokes aren't laughing 100% because of the construct of the joke, ya know? They're laughing because the humor makes others feel uncomfortable. Like BORAT before it, OAR takes people out of the movie-viewing experience into a place where they're questioning their own sensibilities: "Did I just laugh at a guy raping someone?" It also is filled with a cast who are failures and blowouts, like Bill Clinton's redneck brother - the guy who reminded us that at least genetically-speaking, Clinton himself was part cornball retard. And as Ben Folds once said, "You just can't escape your redneck past." Unlike BORAT, however, OAR is begging us to laugh AT (unapologetically) the central character's terrible life. It wants us to point fingers and guffaw. It's Jerry Springer on the big screen! That is, in my opinion, this movie's biggest triumph, a Swiftian kick in the pants to polite society. We movie-goers are so used to trying to relate and sympathize with characters and that might be funniest joke of all. Seeing critics grappling with their inability to "like" Rogen's character.
A delusion, a satire - OBSERVE AND REPORT is many things, and I won't say that it succeeds on all levels. In fact, I'll go ahead and say that the last two minutes, the two minutes that come after the insane blunt-force trauma of the climax, are pandering and lame. Had this movie ended differently, it'd rank higher on the chain. But OAR is a massive success during its other 84 minutes of run time, anyway.
Jody Hill's got a vision, a talent, and I hope he keeps getting supported.
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