Observe and Report (2009)

I had lots of thoughts about this movie, so, here it is, a bulleted list.

• Seth Rogen was really good. Even his face seemed different, playing a guy who, at times, had very disturbed thoughts.
• Anna Faris was good as well. She has an amazing moment when after drinking half a dozen tequila shots and popping Clonazepams her face goes entirely slack and empty. Chilling. (She could do broad comedy for the rest of her life and it wouldn't be a wasted career, but I'd love to see her try something else. She's really good.)
  
• This movie is not for the faint-hearted. It's pretty disturbing and violent.
• I love the idea of exploring the limits of this new type of comedic male protagonist--the aggressive man-child as exemplified by Adam Sandler and Will Ferrel--and taking that character to his psychotic endgame.
• This movie did not quite succeed at that.
• When it was trying to be explicitly funny, like making the mom not just a drunk but a foul-mouthed slut, it was not so good.
• I forget the name of the actress who played the mom but she's in a ton of movies and she is never bad.
• I liked this a little better than Jody Hill's other big project, the HBO series Eastbound and Down.
• I know there was a lot of discussion around the "date rape" sequence. I didn't think it was so bad. Yes, it was awful, but the characters are awful, which is the whole point. Also, it felt real. It wasn't a cheap moment just to be edgy.
  
• There's a funny self-reflective moment in the film when one character walks out on a scene, saying, I thought this would be funny, but it turned just to be sad.
• They really hedged their bets at the end when -- Spoiler alert -- Seth Rogen shoots but does not kill the flasher.
  
• This could have been a lot better, but I appreciate the effort of taking this type of comedy to a scary place.
• Asis Anzari has a very funny line about Chick-Fil-A. I memorized the minute mark and played it for Charlene, even though she didn't watch the rest of the movie.