Marathon of Shops: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

There are a few movies that I revisit frequently.  Though not my favourite movies, and not the best movies, they are movies that I enjoy watching.  I can do other things while watching them, yet still get the entire experience of watching them.  I love these movies.  Paul Blart: Mall Cop is one of these movies.  No matter how many times I see it, I still have a good time.  I turn my brain off and enjoy.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop was a 2009 Happy Madison production starring Kevin James as the titular character.  He was a security officer in the West Orange Pavilion Mall who fell in love, and fought a team of crooks on Black Friday.  Also in this movie were Jayma Mays, Keir O’Donnell, Stephen Rannazzisi, and Bobby Cannavale.  If you wanted to know who directed it, the director was Steve Carr.

Going for a ride.

The thing that made Paul Blart: Mall Cop so good was Kevin James.  He was completely invested in the role of Paul Blart.  He said each line with conviction, and his physicality in the role really shone through.  Of course, each of these aspects was played for laughs since this was a light-hearted comedy.  Kevin James never passed up an opportunity for a joke.  It was easy to see how much he liked the movie while he was playing the part.  It was like a child in a candy store.  If he were not in the role of Paul Blart, this movie could have easily fallen apart.  Kevin James was the glue and he held the movie together.

Kevin James was not the only good part of the movie.  The dialogue helped.  There were good jokes and one-liners strewn throughout the movie that brought out the chuckles.  Each piece of dialogue was a setup to something else, or it directly led to a punchline.  All of the dialogue meant something.  There was no extra fat in the dialogue department.  And it was funny.  That was the best part.  Though performances tend to help bring the comedy out of the dialogue, a lot of the dialogue in Paul Blart: Mall Cop was funny on its own.

This is what investing yourself in a role looks like.

However, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was not strictly a comedy.  There was action in the movie.  The action throughout the second half of the movie succeeded in ways that never could have been expected prior to watching it.  The action was easy to follow, in a way that many movies tend to not do too much anymore.  It is getting better, but there are still movies that do quick cuts and shakiness, which takes away from understanding what is happening.  Paul Blart: Mall Cop allowed the viewer to know what was happening at all times.  On top of that, the action was funny too.  There were chases throughout the mall.  There was a lot of falling.  There was even a Segway jumping over a gap between two roofs.  This was comedy gold.

None of these things would have been anything if not for the solid plot of the movie.  Paul Blart: Mall Cop was about a man overcoming obstacles to be the man that he knew he could be.  Like any superhero, he had a weakness that he had to defeat.  He fell in love with a girl, but there was another man competing for the affection of the girl.  Both the girl and Paul’s daughter were in trouble, making Paul work harder to defeat the bad guys.  All of these pieces came together to weave a solid story that could become the foundation for a delightful movie. 

This is a war face.

If you came into this looking for a comparison between Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and Observe and Report, there is not much of a comparison to give.  One is much darker than the other, and they are going for completely different things.  Comparing them would be wrong.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a movie that I will continue to go back to every once in a while.  It’s a movie that I enjoy immensely.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t always be praising it.  It’s worth checking out.

Next up in the Marathon of Shops is Chopping Mall.  I know nothing about this movie.  Nothing at all.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

I'm faster than you!