Quentin Tarantino Loves Seth Rogen's Critically-Panned Observe And Report
Quentin Tarantino isn't just one of our greatest living filmmakers, he's also one of the world's preeminent cinephiles. Whereas many directors try to keep their opinions to themselves, especially regarding recently released movies, Tarantino loves to sound off. He publicly shares his yearly top 10 lists, and uses every interview as an opportunity to talk about whatever movies happen to be on his mind at that particular moment. He also recently launched a podcast with his longtime buddy (and one-time Video Archives co-worker) Roger Avary, and published a book in which he holds forth on significant movies and directors.
Ever since Tarantino became a brand unto himself (around the time Miramax gave him a boutique distribution arm called Rolling Thunder Pictures), we quickly realized that his taste in movies is all over the place. He could champion an arthouse triumph like Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express," then turn around and re-release Lucio Fulci's splatter classic "The Beyond." He also throws curveballs. You might expect him to fall for a genre exercise like Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," but the year it was released he far preferred Paul W.S. Anderson's generic rendition of "The Three Musketeers."
Even when you disagree with him, it's exciting to see a world-class filmmaker go against the critical grain — as he did in 2009 when he celebrated one of Seth Rogen's most critically maligned star vehicles.
A darkly comedic reworking of Taxi Driver
Jody Hill's "Observe and Report" is not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's really for you. It's the tale of Ronnie Barnhardt, an overzealous mall security guard who's a legend in his own mind, and a sad, scary loser to everyone else. When his dream of becoming a policeman is dashed because he fails the psychiatric evaluation, Ronnie goes on an authoritarian rampage that climaxes with him shooting a flasher with a handgun at point-blank range. The film is as hilarious as it is disturbing, and Tarantino ate it up.
In a 2009 interview with L.A. Weekly's Ella Taylor, the filmmaker gushed over Hill's masterpiece, while taking issue with the way critics were categorizing it. Per Tarantino:
"One of the best movies this year is 'Observe and Report.' That's a real movie. Somebody said it's Seth Rogen's 'Punch-Drunk Love.' Well, f*** 'Punch-Drunk Love' — it's 'Taxi Driver.' That's f***** Travis Bickle. I find it hard to believe there's going to be another moment as cathartic as him shooting the flasher."
Ronnie Barnhardt's day will come
Tarantino couldn't be more spot on in his assessment. Ronnie is absolutely as dangerous as De Niro's Bickle, and the moment he blasts the flasher is jarringly transcendent. I've rarely heard an audience gasp en masse quite like that. The entire film is so brilliantly executed that Hill gets away with using The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind," which previously belonged to David Fincher's "Fight Club" (here's where I'll indulge my inner-Tarantino, and tell you that I think Hill made the superior movie).
Alas, "Observe and Report" underperformed at the box office, which might be why Hill has largely taken his gloriously profane, cringe-comedy talents to television — specifically HBO, where he's blessed us over the last decade with "Eastbound and Down," "Vice Principals" and "The Righteous Gemstones." I hope Tarantino has kept up with Hill's output, because these shows are every bit as rattling and uproarious as his comedic riff on "Taxi Driver." I hope Tarantino gets around to writing about "Observe and Report" one of these days, because it's one of the best films of the 2000s and deserves all the love it can get.