It’s the oddest thing. Across the Atlantic, the sharpest film writers on the planet consistently falter, tripped up by preposterous snobbishness, when it comes to horror or comedy. Here in the Old Country, we’ve known Tina Fey was a genius since Mean Girls. We can all name our favourite Will Ferrell movie. We can detect traces of the same anarchic spirit that characterised Duck Soup in much pilloried vehicles like Strange Wilderness and Hot Rod.
And so to Mall Cop – or Paul Blart: Mall Cop to give it its US title – one of the worst reviewed, top-grossing movies in living memory. Can any film that features a grown man breaking down to the strains of Barry Manilow’s ‘Weekend In New England’ really be so bad?
Hardly.
An old-fashioned, high-concept action-comedy that, had the poor man lived, would surely have starred John Candy, this is Die Hard with popular lard-arsed lug Kevin James (King of Queens, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry). Can this police academy drop-out turned mall cop get the girl and save the day when a gang of ninja robbers swoop down on his New Jersey shopping centre? Probably.
Big, dumb and mostly all-ages fun, Mall Cop is perfectly pleasant as films emerging from Adam Sandler’s production company go. The laugh quotient should be higher. The supporting characters, particularly love interest Jayma Mays, could have done with fleshing out. (Blonde, despite the script’s insistence to the contrary, is not a recognisable personality trait.)
Still, Mr. James, the film’s co-writer and star, is no Rob Schneider. His lonely, puppy-eyed security guard, a gentle lummox who lives with his mom and teenage daughter, is only two steps to the left of the poignant schmucks found in the respectable, sophisticated dramedies of Alexander Payne.