Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Kevin James Delivers Stupid

I have a painful confession to make. No, that’s a lie – it isn’t painful at all, except maybe for you all. The truth is that on occasion I crave and joyously devour a movie that I know full well is stupid and crappy. But it just hits the spot when I need some mindless, funny entertainment to take me out of my own head for a couple of hours. With a title like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, it wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to figure that I could get a good dose of the stupids from this movie. And – yay me! – I was right!

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the brain child of director Steve Carr who brought us the horrifying treasure that is Daddy Day Care and writer/star Kevin James who annoyed me greatly in King of Queens. This is not a promising pairing, I must say. The story revolves around Paul Blart (James) who is……..wait for it…….a mall cop! I know, you’re asking yourself how they came up with such a witty and unusual title for the movie. I have no answer for you except that everything in Hollywood must be magic.

The plot we get is minimal – involving a big heist at the mall and a pretty girl. There’s little to no substance to the story, it’s just a vehicle on which James gets to ride as Blart. Blart is an uber-nerd who lives with his mother and daughter and takes great pride in his role as mall security guard. As he rides the hallways on his Segway it’s obvious that nobody else sees the awesome responsibility or appreciates the stealthy efficiency of Mr. Blart. He gets picked on by other mall employees and just generally gets no respect. He has a crush on the new kiosk girl who sells fake hair and has been tasked with training a new employee. When all heck breaks loose and the mall is under siege by a bunch of no-good hooligans, it may just be up to the intrepid Blart to save the day. Will he succeed? Will he get the girl? Does anyone seriously not know the answers to these questions?

I know – it all sounds dreadful. But, much to my own surprise, it really isn’t. James is a very good physical comedian, wielding his considerable girth with admirable skill. His stunts are quite funny and very well executed. He’s also written himself a very sweet, and very silly, character in Blart. Yeah, the guy is a doofus, but he has a good heart and enough quirks to make him endearing without being too terribly annoying. Some of the limited “action” scenes in the mall are even quite well done, with skateboards and trick bikes sailing around the over-stuffed mall as Blart plugs along on his Segway. The scenes aren’t believable in any way, shape or form, but they are fun. Paul Blart: Mall Cop resembles a Die Hard parody in many ways, with the lone protagonist tormenting the bad guys while the cops watch from the wings, and those similarities add an extra bit of fun to the proceedings.

The peripheral characters have just enough face time to allow them a chance to make or break the film. They have little dimension but if any of them were horrid they would destroy the dynamic. So limited kudos have to go to Raini Rodriguez as Blart’s daughter, Shirley Knight as his mother, Jayma Mays as the kiosk girl, Stephen Rannazzisi as his main mall tormenter and Keir O’Donnell as the main baddie. They aren’t given a whole lot to do, but none of them fails in any major way. Decent secondary character casting isn’t an easy achievement for a fat-guys-are-funny movie and they do a good job here.

Overall, Paul Blart: Mall Cop will never be mistaken for high art. It’s a fat-guy comedy with a limited plot that serves as a platform on which the star can perform. That James wisely adds in a liberal dose of Die Hard homage helps make the mundane feel warmly familiar, propping up the weak spots with silly twists on the action genre. James himself is a good physical comedian who obviously has no issues with making fun of his rotund physique. The whole exercise ends up being far more fun than I had anticipated and a very good choice for those times when your brain craves stupidity and easy laughs. Recommended for anyone who has had a long week and wants to watch something that requires no mental effort.

– S. Millinocket