Broken Record Syndrome: Comedy's Twisted New Danger

As if I haven't voiced enough love for HBO's now-gone Eastbound and Down, let me start this off by saying that the six-part story of Kenny Powers' attempt at reclaiming his "throne" was the ballsiest TV series of the last couple years, and if you missed, "You fucked up den" (to quote Jay Dog from the almighty Whiteboyz). What made the series so special was how the screenwriters (Jody Hill, Danny McBride, and Ben Best) embraced their main character's despicability and never tried making him any more sympathetic than he barely was. In Powers' eyes, he was on a path of redemption, but he was the only person who saw what he was doing as a true positive, other than his psychologically-warped lackie Stevie. Just when you thought the final episode was going to end on a triumphant note for Powers, we found out that his failed life was right back on square one. No easy way out, no cathartic resolution. He was still in the same shitter that he started out in.

Constructing everyman epics around loathesome antiheroes is what Jody Hill does so well. His directorial debut, last year's indie buzz-grabber The Foot Fist Way, showed the flawed promise that Eastbound and Down perfected. Fred Simmons (played by Danny McBride, like "Kenny Powers"), the pigheaded tae kwon do instructor at Foot Fist's center, fancies himself a king in a land of suburban peasants, when in reality he's the biggest court jester around. This sad truth is driven home once Simmons' martial arts hero, Chuck the Truck (a clear Chuck Norris knockoff), comes to town and fucks Simmons' trashy wife and treats his biggest fan as if he's more of a nuisance than a motivation. And once the film ends, we're not left with a man reformed in any way; we're sent off feeling the exact same ill will toward Simmons that he's negatively earned from Scene One. Not to mention, uncomfortably laughing all along.



Fred Simmons vs Chuck the Truck

The Foot Fist Way is slow in spaces, sluggish in pacing. Not all of the jokes hit hard enough, and the overall texture gives the vibe that Hill and company became too confy in the film's mockumentary approach, forgetting to spice up their plate from time to time. Going with a terrible human being for its lead, though, and allowing him to fail, and then fail again, gives the film a nice, sleazy charm.

It's great to see that Hill hasn't abandoned this "moral villain becomes the happy-ending-free antihero" aesthetic with Observe and Report, his first mainstream film that should be at least marginally successful thanks to its A-list star, Seth Rogen. Rogen's demented mall cop character, Ronnie Barnhardt, wishes he could be a legitimate gun-toting police officer, and sees himself as a bigger deal than he actually is. Which would be sad to watch if Ronnie wasn't such an abhorrent scumbag, a racist blowhard much better at spying on sexy mallgoing ladies than catching the perverted flasher showing his chubby belly and man-junk freely in the parking lot. Even though he's totally unable to apprehend the flasher, Ronnie sees this case as his big chance to prove himself and become the hero, and turns a sexual deviant into his own means of salvation. Only, it doesn't work out that way. His sadistic tendencies get the best of him. There's zero self-improvement to be had.


Jody Hill and Seth Rogen

Except for a more pristine look than the peanuts-and-duct-tape The Foot Fist Way (courtesy of a major studio-funded cinematographer) could ever afford, Observe and Report feels right at home alongside Hill's past work, especially Eastbound and Down. Rogen proves that he's more than the schlubby, underachieving stoner with his Ronnie incarnation, mostly shedding his past cuddly, likeable demeanor and putting on a fresh coat of scary and convincingly imbalanced. I can't help but think, though, that Hill conceived this Ronnie Barnhardt with Danny McBride in mind, but then the studio came along and demanded a bigger name, resulting in Hill calling his buddy Rogen. Fortunately, Rogen holds his own, embodying the character's every dirty facet even when it seems like he's just doing his best McBride impersonation at times.

Hill shows no fear. What he's delivered is a '7Scorcese-light throwback that, while not totally successful at capturing that tone, does come off quite like a '70s-loving film student's writing comedy while on a bender. In a good way. You get line-pushing moments ranging from Ronnie taking intercourse-advantage of a drunk girl covered in her own vomit, to skateboard kids getting their skulls bashed in by their own boards, to an Oldboy-style tracking shot fight sequence that has Ronnie fending for survival against a swarm of cops with only a flashlight in his hand. All played for the hearty chuckles, weirdly enough. Hill has repeatedly said that Observe & Report is his attempt to create a "comedic Taxi Driver," a lofty aspiration that, while not entirely fulfilled, shows where the guy's head is at in terms of storytelling and filmmaking. And it's at a place that a lover of nihilistic entertainment such as myself both admires and welcomes.

This generation's "Judd Apatow comedies" (in which Rogen himself is obviously a massive element), while unquestionably great, lack any real sense of danger, any unexpected turns. The routine beats (guy underachieves, he's presented with a life-changing opportunity, and he ultimately emerges a better person) are always hit, and you leave the film content and amused, but not challenged. Hill would hate for that midlevel expectation to be laid upon his stuff; he wants to catch you off guard with images and plot-turns that'll make you feel as if you're watching the wrong film. "Isn't this supposed to be a comedy? Why am I feeling more paralysic than hilarity?" It's a tough trick to execute, making the audience laugh out loud one minute and then shriek in disbelief the next. But Hill seems to have a growing handle on it.

I could only imagine what Hill could do with a horror film, or a straight-up psychological thriller. When a scene such as this represents a perfect ending in your eyes (as it does mine), the sky is the limit as to how fucked up you could make something:

Taxi Driver (avoid watching if you've never seen the film, and go rent it immediately)