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Some people really love goofy comedy, and for those people there's Paul Blart: Mall Cop. You can bring the kids.
The film is distinguished by the innocent physical comedy of Kevin James (TV's King Of Queens; movies Hitch and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry), who plays Paul Blart, the mall cop in question.
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Blart longs to be a policeman, but a wonky blood-sugar condition keeps stopping him from passing the physical tests. Meanwhile, he earns a living by patrolling the local shopping mall, where he has a smart uniform and absolutely no authority.
Blart takes his work seriously -- stopping seniors from speeding on their motorized scooters, for example -- so he's the laughing-stock of the security team. His colleagues think he's a do-gooder and a nebbish.
Blart likes a girl who works at the mall (Jayma Mays, Ugly Betty). Her job is selling hair extensions at a kiosk called Unbeweaveable. Paul Blart's flirting is inept and embarrassing, and the source of plenty of laughs. (Weirdly, however, you don't really laugh at Kevin James in this role so much as you laugh with him. There's something adorable about this Blart character.)
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Our hero is a good father (Raini Rodriguez plays his daughter).
Our hero does his best to mentor a new security guard (Keir O'Donnell, Wedding Crashers).
Our hero is obviously a very good guy, so when a team of athletic villains attempts to take over and rob the whole mall, you'll be rooting for Paul Blart.
You can see the comic possibilities -- a pack of top skateboarders, bikers and free-runners, leaping and flying all over a New Jersey shopping mall, versus one roly-poly security guard.
Blart uses his wits to combat the mall robbers and to keep a movie audience laughing, but the filmmakers don't shy away from some terrific action stunts. The movie has a stupendous fall through a glass skylight that could almost be a Quantum Of Solace homage.
Or maybe not.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop is exactly what it appears to be -- a harmless family comedy. Its moral is that sometimes, good guys finish first. The movie is a fairly typical Hollywood creation, which means it plays like a lengthy episode of a TV sitcom.
Still, Kevin James' self-deprecating brand of laughs is at the centre of this movie, and for his fans, that's more than enough reason to put their money down.
(This film is rated PG)