Similarly, a subplot involving Ray Liotta as the arrogant detective standing in Ronnie's way of becoming a cop feels half-baked and unrealized. Here we've got two wonderfully intense actors working opposite one another, and yet the movie hardly takes advantage of that fact. Liotta has some good moments, indeed some of the film's best, but his character becomes little more than a plot contrivance. Even worse is the story of Ronnie's second-in-command security guard Dennis (an unrecognizable Michael Peña); out of nowhere, the character develops a darker side, and I still can't figure out what place it has in the movie. For a movie that only lasts 86 minutes, including credits, Observe and Report is filled with a lot of extraneous material.
The most winning and fully-realized part of the film is Ronnie's relationship with Nell (Collette Wolfe), the mall's new barista. She's taken the job to pay for medical expenses relating to her broken leg, and because of said leg, endures torturous mocking from her boss (the ever-awesome Patton Oswalt). Nell and Ronnie start off as merely friendly acquaintances, but from their first moments together, we can see the beginnings of something else, something sweeter, something that the both of them deserve. Wolfe is so sprightly and chipper that she reminded me of the cute talking animals in one of those old Disney movies, like Snow White or Bambi. It makes for an interesting contrast with Ronnie's unchecked aggression, and to Hill's credit, he takes it about as far as it should probably go.
It really is a shame, though, that Observe and Report doesn't consistently deliver like that. As such, Rogen's position reminds me of a young Bill Murray's in Razor's Edge or Where the Buffalo Roam; neither of those films were particularly good, and Murray's performances were confident if slightly misguided, but they presented an inkling of the true talent within. I can imagine Rogen going down the same career path, from reliable funnyman to indispensable character actor.
With Observe and Report, Jody Hill accomplishes his mission of wresting a cheap laugh from the audience, but his film is as weirdly impotent and maladjusted as its main character. Rogen is clearly deserving of more than that. His best days are still ahead of him.
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