Judd Apatow's Evil Twin

OBSERVE AND REPORT

Thanks to another of my roommate Mike's free preview screenings, I saw Observe and Report (trailers: standard, redband, and hilarious French) in Philly the other day. This is screenwriter and director Jody Hill's third production, after The Foot Fist Way last year and the six-episode HBO series Eastbound and Down this year. All three center around losers with grossly inflated opinions of themselves; this time, it's Ronnie (Seth Rogen), a mall security guard who considers himself master of all he surveys, even if he's only surveying the food court and the sunglasses hut. His little universe is unsettled when a flasher in the parking lot both gives him an opportunity to prove himself and undermines his meager authority by bringing a police detective (Ray Liotta) in on the case. Though not for the faint of heart or the overly sensitive, it's hilarious in a dark, disturbing sort of way; all the performances are great, from Rogen, Liotta, and Anna Faris (as Brandi, makeup counter girl and object of Ronnie's affections) to little but memorable performances by Aziz Ansari, Patton Oswalt, and Danny McBride. If you like your comedy darker than a steer's tuckus on a moonless night—and the PG humor of Paul Blart: Mall Cop left you unsatisfied—then make Observe and Report a movie-going priority.

I gave this post the title I did because I intend this post to be less of a review of Observe and Report and more of a comparison of Jody Hill with arguably the most significant figure in comedy today, Judd Apatow. My reason for comparing these two filmmakers is that I see them both as coming from a similar place and speaking a similar language, and this comes across in their respective comedies. While Apatow has firmly established himself as a sort of godfather of contemporary comedy, with at least a few films in which he's involved, either directly or (like I Love You, Man) indirectly, being released each year for the last several years, Hill is just starting in his filmmaking career and has had trouble finding an audience (The Foot Fist Way made less than a quarter-million in theaters); but I already see Hill as potentially being yin to Apatow's yang in the field of contemporary comedy.

One of the most frequent criticisms I've heard of the Coen Brothers is that they don't seem to like their characters, routinely subjecting them to physical abuse, ridicule, and moral disapproval. The same could be said ten times over for Jody Hill: The Foot Fist Way showed us a big-talking taekwondo instructor who bullies his students and is laid low by his wife's infidelities; Eastbound and Down showed us a former major-league baseball pitcher who still feels entitled to star treatment despite his long-dead career and his abusive behavior; and now Observe and Report's Ronnie is a petty, self-important blowhard with delusions of grandeur bordering on a messiah complex. It takes daring to make a career of telling stories whose protagonists do their best to turn the audience off.

The protagonists of Apatow's films—Andy in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Ben in Knocked Up, Evan and Seth in Superbad, Peter in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Dale in Pineapple Express—are all flawed individuals with negative traits and foibles holding them back (Andy's lack of self-confidence, Ben's immaturity, Peter's inability to move on). But fundamentally, these characters are intended to be relatable and sympathetic; we want them to succeed because we, to one degree or another, see part of ourselves in them and put ourselves in their shoes. Hill takes a radically different approach with his protagonists, making them so pathetic and distasteful that he's practically daring us to relate to them; whereas we laugh with Apatow's protagonists, we laugh at Hill's (when we aren't cringing in dislike).

SPOILERS FOLLOW — BEWARE!

Both Apatow's leads and Hill's eventually overcome their obstacles and achieve some measure of happiness by the movie's end, though they follow very different paths in doing so. In Apatow's films, our hero comes to terms with his shortcomings and transcends them. In Hill's films, our anti-hero seems to achieve success (at least as defined by the film's very modest standards) despite his never growing as a person or overcoming his weaknesses; The Foot Fist Way's Fred tells his unfaithful wife off and defeats his hero-turned-archnemesis in a martial-arts face-off, while Observe and Report's Ronnie catches the flasher, tells Brandi off, gets rehired as head of mall security, and ends up with the pastry-store girl who inexplicably carries a torch for him, without either of them gaining any humility or perspective. What for anyone else would be a failing becomes for Hill's characters a point of pride and the secret of their success. Instead of finding better standards by which to live, they succeed according to their old, flawed standards.

SPOILERS ALL DONE NOW

Apatow has made or been involved in some of my favorite movies, but I have to give it up to Hill for taking some similar material—a flawed protagonist, a colorful supporting cast, a relatively mundane setting explored in an off-color way—and going a different route with it. While Apatow, despite the "raunchy" style of humor, plays it safe for the most part with likeable characters who better themselves by the end of the movie in well trod three-reel fashion, Hill dares us to enjoy his productions in spite of his protagonists, rather than because of them.

P.S. — Here is a great interview with Jody Hill by CHUD's Devin Faraci, talking about his influences, intentions, and "warped sense of humor" in making Observe and Report (plus the possibility of another season of Eastbound and Down). Enjoy.