Tagline: Right now, the world needs a hero.
As head of security at the Forest Ridge Mall, Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) takes his job very seriously, enforcing mall rules with an iron fist. When a flasher strikes Forest Ridge, Ronnie sees a chance to display his unappreciated cop skills and bring the felon to justice, and, at the same time, impress his dream girl (Anna Faris) and win a coveted spot at the police academy.
At the Forest Ridge Mall, head of security Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogens) patrols his jurisdiction with an iron fist. The master of his domain, he combats skateboarders, shoplifters and the occasional unruly customer while dreaming of the day when he can swap his flashlight for a badge and a gun.
Ronnie’s delusions of grandeur are put to the test when the mall is struck by a flasher. Driven by his personal duty to protect and serve the mall and its patrons, Ronnie seizes the opportunity to showcase his underappreciated law enforcement talents on a grand scale, hoping his solution of this crime will earn him a coveted spot at the police academy and the heart of his elusive dream girl Brandi, the hot makeup counter clerk who won’t give him the time of day. But his single-minded pursuit of glory launches a turf war with the equally competitive Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) of the Conway Police, and Ronnie is confronted with the challenge of not only catching the flasher, but getting him before the real cops do.
Observe and Report is a 2009 American comedy film written and directed by Jody Hill, starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and Ray Liotta. The plot follows a mall cop who wants to join the police academy. The film grossed $11 million in its opening weekend (an average of $4,085 at 2,727 theaters), finishing in fourth place, behind Hannah Montana: The Movie, Fast & Furious and Monsters vs. Aliens (also featuring Rogen). To date it is the lowest-grossing mainstream film of Rogen’s starring career, and second lowest-grossing film overall before Take this Waltz, grossing a total of $27 million.
About the Production
Ronnie Barnhardt is a man on a mission. A mission to clean up the criminal element invading his territory. Cross him, step out of line, even look in the wrong direction, and it’s all over. No one is safe. A self-taught vigilante working within the system, the tiny taste of authority he has been given has gone straight to his head. He’s a small fish in a small pond, but his delusions of grandeur reign supreme and he patrols his beat like a shark scours the ocean. With Ronnie, a little bit of authority is a very dangerous thing.
As an overzealous, self-deluded, self-aggrandizing, self-proclaimed supercop with a warped sense of reality, he wants nothing more than to carry a gun-and use it. But Ronnie is the last man who should be licensed to kill. Yet within the confines of his domain, he sees himself as the thin blue line between order and anarchy, ready to serve and protect. Unfortunately for Ronnie, his job is to observe and report.
Observe and Report-the credo for security details throughout America. Their responsibility: to protect inventory and clientele, while lacking the authority to actually do so. This is the challenge facing security chief Ronnie Barnhardt and his team. Armed with only a flashlight, taser and modified golf cart, it’s a challenge Ronnie, whose relationship with reality is on somewhat shaky ground, does not take lightly.
“Ronnie takes his job far too seriously,” says star Seth Rogen, who plays the character. “He sees the mall where he works as the world-you get the sense that he doesn’t leave very often.”
When Ronnie’s domain is breached by a flasher, he perceives it not only as a threat, but as an opportunity to make his mark-his internal demons spotting a chance to prove that he is an underappreciated paragon of justice trapped in a security guard uniform.
Writer / director Jody Hill has a keen eye for finding the comedy in ordinary situations and a penchant for characters with a warped view of the world. People who see themselves as far more important than they actually are and who have not yet realized their dreams-as seemingly attainable as those dreams may be.
“There’s a pervert that comes around to the mall and flashes some of the ladies,” offers Hill. “Ronnie, in his somewhat delusional way, sees this as his call to arms, to greatness. He’s on a mission to stop this pervert before the local police can solve the crime. In fact, he really sees the detective as his nemesis and it becomes a violent standoff between Ronnie and the police.”
“I like the idea of these characters who are in a position of power but don’t know how to deal with that,” continues Hill. But he wasn’t interested in making a straightforward, lighthearted comedy. “I want to make films that are dangerous and controversial, even if they offend some people,” he asserts.
“Jody wanted to defy genres, in a sense,” comments producer Donald De Line, who first met Hill following Sundance when he saw his feature debut, “The Foot Fist Way.” “I thought Jody had a fantastic, fresh new voice. And he really wanted to push the envelope with ‘Observe and Report,’ to do something that didn’t fit into any one box. With this dark comedy, I think he’s succeeded in that.”
In fact, De Line says Hill purposely brought a more dramatic tradition to the comedy, not wanting the characters to be “winking” at the audience. “He really did approach it like a drama first and foremost; the situations, the outrageousness of it is what makes it funny,” offers the producer. “There are intense fight scenes, male nudity, drugs, sex. It pushes the boundaries of what a ‘Hollywood comedy’ is supposed to be. It’s purposely dark; the story takes itself very seriously and so do the characters. There’s no self-consciousness, no sense of parody about it.”
Hill reveals that his inspiration was a movie that might not lend itself to comedy. “I realize this may be the only comedy ever made that was inspired by ‘Taxi Driver,'” observes Hill. “It’s one of my favorite films and Scorsese is one of my favorite directors, so I tried to create a character that could draw some parallels, even though this is a comedy. For instance, Ronnie Barnhardt is a lonely guy who feels isolated and wants to make a difference in this world, but doesn’t really know how.”
Executive producer Andrew Haas adds, “Ronnie is essentially an underdog, yet he doesn’t perceive himself as such. He’s not looking for anybody’s sympathy. He takes a great deal of pride in who he is.”
Seth Rogen agreed to star as Ronnie Barnhardt without reading a word of the script. Rogen recalls, “Jody was still in the middle of writing it, but it just seemed funny, this guy who’s kind of a sheriff in this little universe. I loved the idea instantly and said I would do it.”
When the screenplay was completed, Rogen found it “hilarious-I thought it was a real character piece. This guy Ronnie just kind of loses it, becomes a vigilante and decides that he’ll be the instrument to clean up the world.”
Special Elite Task Force
Ronnie’s life gains real purpose when his daily routine of manhandling wild skateboarders and petty shoplifters is punctuated by a truly newsworthy event: a pervert has infiltrated his mall and it’s his job to stop him. Concerned about the television coverage slowing down business, however, the mall manager calls in the cavalry.
“Ronnie is determined to catch the pervert, so when the cops try to take over the investigation, he feels threatened, like he needs to step it up,” relates Hill. “So he assembles the Special Elite Task Force, which is basically his fellow security guards plus a kid who works the door at Captain O’Landers, a restaurant in the mall.
Despite his rather motley crew, Ronnie is deadly serious and, at times, both armed and dangerous.
“There are a lot of fight scenes in the film-we’ve got Ronnie jumping walls, shooting guns, fist-fighting. Seth does it pretty much all himself,” notes the director. “You may not necessarily know this, but Seth is a physical guy; he’s really graceful and athletic. I didn’t know that about him. It’s been really cool to watch.”
Rogen is quick to note that Ronnie, though completely comfortable with violence, “doesn’t start every fight in the movie-just most of them.”
Though Hill wrote Ronnie with Rogen in mind, De Line feels the role is a real departure for the actor, who has played a number of characters who suffer from prolonged adolescence. “I think Ronnie is more mature, in a way. There’s a lot of complexity to him.”
The director agrees. “Ronnie is the opposite of Seth-we’ve never seen Seth Rogen like this before. He just blew me away with how good he is.” Rogen draws his own comparisons. “Ronnie is extremely serious about his work, whereas I did a total of nine minutes of research with a real security guard,” he jokes.
But the actor had no trouble getting at what makes his character tick. “At the mall, Ronnie is the king, he is the law-until something illegal actually happens and the real police come; and then he’s instantly very threatened. That’s when the competition between him and the cops starts.”
Ronnie finds himself at odds with a certain detective first when chasing down the flasher, then when one of the mall shops is burglarized, and again when Ronnie attempts to join the police academy by going on a ride-along.
Enter veteran actor Ray Liotta as Detective Harrison. “We wanted someone with a formidable presence to go up against Seth Rogen,” De Line states, “because Seth has a big presence of his own.” The producer smiles, “Just saying Ray Liotta versus Seth Rogen made everybody laugh.”
“I just had a blast on this movie,” says Liotta. No stranger to playing badass roles, he enjoyed taking on the take-charge police detective. “My character comes in and kind of takes control of the investigation and flirts with Brandi, the girl who Seth’s character, Ronnie, likes. Ronnie is just basically a pain through the whole movie for Harrison-every time he tries to ask people questions, Ronnie’s interrupting, and it definitely frustrates my character and makes him incredibly angry.”
Hill was pleased that Liotta was interested in the part. “I never thought I’d be making a movie with Ray Liotta,” remarks the director. “His performance is astonishing; he’s spontaneous and crazy. He has this ability to make you wonder if his character will laugh or cut you in the ribs.”
Liotta was not Hill’s only unexpected choice. The director expounds, “For the most part, I wanted to surround Seth with dramatic actors. I wanted something that was played totally straight and figured what better way to do that than to have these serious actors saying silly lines.”
Michael Peña, well-known for his dramatic work, was a great find for the filmmakers. When the actor came in to read for Ronnie’s second-in-command, Dennis, “I felt like I was watching some type of insane genius,” remembers Hill. He was so impressed by Peña’s audition that he rewrote the character. “When I saw him, I decided to write a much bigger part.”
Peña describes his character as “having seen ‘American Pimp’ too many times. He works alongside Ronnie, and he is part of the Special Elite Task Force, this group that Ronnie has organized in order to get this pervert. But really he’s Ronnie’s right-hand man, his buddy to the end. I think Dennis would probably die for that dude.”
As obsessed as Ronnie is with his job, he is equally infatuated with Brandi, a sexy blonde who works at the department store makeup counter.
To play the object of Ronnie’s misplaced affection, the filmmakers turned to Anna Faris, who has proven her comedy chops in a string of hits. “I’ve always been a fan and, as Brandi, Anna just blew me away,” says the director.
Faris expands on her character. “Brandi loves to drink, and sleep with strange guys. She takes her shirt off at anybody’s asking, so she’s slightly different from me,” When the pervert flashes Brandi, Ronnie’s outrage and determination reach a new level of intensity. But his ardor is unrequited and his advances are met with general indifference and more than a touch of annoyance.
“Anna says Brandi is the meanest character she’s ever played,” laughs De Line, “which, for us, is a great thing.”
Faris isn’t the only blonde having fun in the film: longtime stage and screen character actress Celia Weston took on the role of Ronnie’s perpetually drunk mother, with whom Ronnie still lives. The cast also includes Jesse Plemons as Ronnie’s newest task force protégé, Charles; Colette Wolfe as the temporarily handicapped, Toast-A-Bun barista Nell; comedian Patton Oswalt as Nell’s overbearing manager; Aziz Ansari as Ronnie’s daily adversary, Saddamn, who sells lotions out of a kiosk in the mall; and Dan Bakkedahl, who takes on the role of Ronnie’s boss and the mall’s manager, Mark. Rounding out Ronnie’s security detail are first-time actors John and Matt Yuan, twin brothers who appropriately play… twin brothers John and Matt Yuen.
Hill reveals that he worked with the Yuans at a television production company years earlier. “I was always kind of fascinated by them,” the director admits. “They’re expert marksmen. At one point in the writing, I needed Ronnie to find some information on guns and I thought, ‘Who would be able to rattle off about guns?'”
“The fact that Jody could say ‘Talk about guns’ and the Yuans could-for hours-means they’re probably pretty dangerous,” Rogen deadpans.
De Line remarks, “Jody has a unique eye for casting-the Yuans were once actually night shift security guards at a factory in the South, so they brought a sense of realism to their parts.”
When looking for the flasher, De Line recalls, “Jody and I were in a casting session and we finally got to the pervert. Jody said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, my friend Randy Gambill from film school said he would do it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, he said he would do it?'”
Gambill served as Hill’s production designer on “The Foot Fist Way.” Hill explains, “I’ve known Randy for 13 years. He said he wanted to play the pervert and I told him he would have to get fully naked. He thought about it for a couple of days, and then said he wanted to do it.”
For a non-professional making his feature film debut, Gambill wound up with a rather important part. De Line was duly impressed. “Randy was a champion. It’s a tough job, and he did it well.”
Master of His Domain
“My initial response to the script was to ask, ‘Are we going to use an existing mall and shoot after hours? Are we building our own mall?'” production designer Chris Spellman wondered. After talking to producer Donald De Line, Spellman was “on the hunt for a mall immediately.” The largely abandoned Winrock Mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was exactly what they were looking for.
While continuing to operate a handful of anchor retailers, the bulk of the building was available for shooting and, in fact, also housed the production offices as well as the editing, costume and production design departments. This proved extremely convenient; even the construction mill and paint department were on site, and there were open areas in which to hold hundreds of extras. Another unused section held the sets for Ronnie’s double-wide trailer and the security office interiors.
“There seems to have been a change in the way malls are constructed,” Spellman observes. “There are a lot more outdoor malls. Because the Winrock is an enclosed, controlled environment, it was really able to help define who Ronnie is.”
Collaborating with Hill and director of photography Tim Orr, “We embraced Americana,” Spellman declares. “Malls are very American, people bring their whole families.”
Together, Orr and Spellman integrated their lighting and set design and decoration to support the color scheme that sustained that theme.
“We didn’t want to hit the audience over the head with it,” says Spellman, “but we went with the red, white and blue theme.”
With just four weeks to prepare, Spellman doubled up on crews and hours to pull everything together in the boarded-up venue. “When we first got there, it was empty-nothing in the food court, no ceiling in certain places, no carpet, no lights.”
“The fact that the mall looks as believable as it does is a direct tribute to Chris Spellman and his staff,” offers executive producer Andrew Haas. “The place was like a ghost town when we first got there.”
“My goal is for people who see the movie to say, ‘Oh, they shot this in a real working mall.’ That would be fine for me,” says Spellman, “that was our job.”
Director Hill was more than pleased with the work. “It looked better than most malls,” he remarks. “It was awesome.”
As a result of the team’s hard work, the mall came to life, morphing from a blank space to Ronnie’s beloved Forest Ridge Mall. To add to the realism, Hill and his casting crew peppered the scenes with patrons that would feel familiar and amuse anyone who’s ever shopped in such a venue: older couples circling the inside rail for daily exercise; gaggles of tween girls on unsupervised shopping excursions; shoplifters nonchalantly stuffing random items into oversized bags; and skateboarding delinquents seeking out smooth ground in the parking lot, creating havoc for Ronnie and his fellow guards.
Closing Time
For his part, Donald De Line will never view a mall or its security in the same way. “I used to think of these guys as cops without guns. Now, after working on this movie, I’m thinking that maybe it’s a good thing that all they’re allowed to do is observe and report,” jokes the producer.
As for Jody Hill, writing and directing a dark comedy about mall security may have been more than a coincidence; it may have been fate. “My dad used to own a couple of coffee stores in some malls,” he reflects. “He would deliver coffee to the stores and he would always park his car in the loading docks, just for the time it took to make his drop. And the mall security guards were always giving him warning tickets. He blew up at them more than a few times.” The director admits, “I remember thinking that was funny.”
Seth Rogen fully appreciated the experience of portraying a man who protects and serves his domain, in this case the Forest Ridge Mall. “It’s a real character story at its core. Sure there’s some shocking stuff in the movie, but when you’re doing comedy you want a lot of people to really respond to it and remember it, so it does have to have something you’ve never seen before. That’s the kind of comedy that I like and it seems to be the benchmark of the movies that really stick around and that people really like. That’s what we were going for.”
Observe and Report (2009)
Directed by: Jody Hill
Starring: Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Ray Liotta, Jesse Plemons, Dan Bakkedahl, John Yuan, Matt Yuan, Celia Weston, Collette Wolfe, Debra-Jayne Brown, Aziz Ansari
Screenplay by: Jody Hill
Production Design by: Chris L. Spellman
Cinematography by: Tim Orr
Film Editing by: Zene Baker
Costume Design by: Gary Jones
Set Decoration by: Helen Britten
Art Direction by: Masako Masuda
Music by: Joseph Stephens
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, graphic nudity, drug use, sexual content and violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: April 10, 2009
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