Column:

'Blart' successfully meets low expectations

'Mall Cop' is surprisingly entertaining with its light attitude.

By Dan Moore

Published Jan. 26, 2009

"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" can pleasantly surprise an audience without, in the final estimation, being a good movie. Such is the privilege of movies that promise nothing and deliver a little more than that. Inoffensive and not altogether incompetent, much like its eponymous hero, "Blart" is occasionally inventive enough to entertain in its own sweet, dumb way.

The first half of the film is where most of the movie's tone problems appear. Kevin James, best known for his 10-year stint as "The King of Queens," co-wrote the movie in addition to starring in it. James stars as Blart, a nice guy who can't quite get a hold of his situation.

In the opening scenes, we see him nimbly take on the police academy obstacle course before he falls over just before the finish line, a victim of his hypoglycemia. He lives with his mother and his daughter, he works at the mall and he's awkward but likable.

In the first half, the film can't maintain a consistent tone for its main character. There's too much broad farce, or if I'm misreading the filmmakers' intentions completely, not enough of it. Our low-key protagonist spends too much time being thrown through plate-glass or beaten up by a middle-aged woman for his sweet flirtation with her at a mall kiosk.

A third of the way in, the movie switches keys completely and becomes a remarkably effective spoof-thriller, at which point the movie's tone problems are resolved by default. A mall is a perfect location for a "Die Hard" movie, and suddenly, Blart, outfitted with sporting goods and a new uniform is out to rescue the object of his mall kiosk affections. In the process, he becomes an entertaining action hero.

In this second act, "Blart" strings together a number of funny fight scenes à la "Home Alone," culminating in a sequence that confirms my long-held suspicion that the toughest perimeter to secure in any mall would be the Rainforest Cafe.

The intrepid mall cop faces off against a group of leaping criminals with little more than his encyclopedic knowledge of the mall's geography. Although much of it is absurd, the movie's light, broad tone allows it to get away with what are, in spite of themselves, enjoyable action set-pieces. A real action movie, self-serious and dour, would begin killing secondary characters off in an attempt to keep some semblance of plausibility, but because "Blart" never once takes itself seriously, it can keep its focus on what I feel secure in saying is one of the greatest Segway/bicycle chases in the history of cinema.

With no action movie ambitions to fulfill and no expectations to deliver on, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" can succeed while aspiring to nothing more than mild amusement. It's not a good movie, but with summer blockbusters and winter Oscar-fodder at their January apogee it doesn't have to be to be good enough.