Not a Satirical Cop-Out

Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Directed by Steve Carr. Starring Kevin James and Jayma Mays.
3/5 Stars

McClane. Murtaugh. Riggs. Blart. One of these things is not like the others. Just saying it out loud makes me laugh—Paul Blart. Such a peculiar action-hero surname got me thinking that if I were to have a list of funny names that I would most want to hear a frog croak, Blart immediately goes to the top of that list.

After his hugely successful television sitcom The King of Queens went off the air in 2007, Kevin James has laid low since, with his only film being the poorly-received I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, released over a year ago. So what have James and producer Adam Sandler been brewing these past eighteen months? Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Yes, I know, this film has Adam Sandler written all over it, but I really wanted to see it. I realize any slapstick comedy produced by Sandler’s Happy Madison production company comes with an automatic red flag, but Kevin James is an irresistibly funny guy, and besides, there’s no way Happy Madison could sink lower than Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. So I had high hopes of being amused.

My hopes were surpassed. Here’s the skinny: Paul Blart (Kevin James) is an overweight, single father who still lives at home with his mother. He is a security officer at a shopping mall in New Jersey who takes his job way too seriously (he patrols the mall on his Segway with an iron fist, at one point attempting to serve an elderly man a citation for reckless driving of a mobility scooter), and although he applied to the New Jersey State Police, he failed the obstacle course at the police academy. He has a crush on a girl named Amy (Lindsay Lohan-look-a-like Jayma Mays), who also works at the mall, and he has no idea how to talk to her. His mother and daughter get him to reluctantly create a profile on www.perfectmatch.com (he is reluctant not because he is desperate for a girlfriend but because he is embarrassed).

This description sounds like a typical, pathetic loser in many Sandler films; but Blart is also a really altruistic, nice guy, and compassion is a trait that most of Sandler’s characters unfortunately lack. In a movie without any gay jokes, nudity, toilet humour, or even swearing, it all adds up to being really adorable and funny.

The film is also surprisingly witty, as it is more of a satire of action-comedy films than it is a slapstick comedy. On Black Friday, a day after Thanksgiving and also the busiest shopping day of the year, a group of would-be terrorists take over the mall with a plan so incredibly insane you wonder if the thieves got high the night before while having a heist-movie marathon. Regardless, they take several hostages, including Amy and Blart’s daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez), and as circumstance would have it, the only man who can save the day is Paul Blart.

The film turns into a wildly funny, imaginative, and action-packed Die Hard scenario: one unarmed man versus a large group of armed terrorists who can’t be reasoned with. That one man, however, is an overweight security officer named Paul Blart, who knocks the thieves out, one by one, by leading them into cat-and-mouse scenarios including the old hiding-in-a-ventilation-shaft trick, the disguising-yourself-as-a-hockey-goalie-in-a-sporting-goods-store routine, and the classic take-your-enemy-out-with-a-tanning-bed manoeuvre.

There’s even a scene satirizing tough guy one-liners themselves in which a police officer is being ordered around by the arrogant SWAT leader (a common occurrence in these types of films) so Blart’s boss, the head of mall security, gives the officer a notepad of one-liners to throw back at the guy, including “You and what army?” to which the officer responds by saying “But he does have an army!” It’s all very funny stuff, and not once do the characters ever turn and wink at the camera. Paul Blart is in a ridiculously funny situation but what keeps it funny is him being able to keep it believable.