REEL CRITICS:

“Observe and Report” is a strange, disturbing movie that falls outside the box of normal film categories. The TV ads falsely present this film as a slapstick comedy about goofy security guards. The main characters may all work in a low-rent shopping mall. But this picture has way too many dark and sinister elements to ever be confused with the mainstream “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

Seth Rogen, though, does a bravura acting job playing a creepy bi-polar mall cop with nasty delusions of grandeur. He’s a single guy living with his sad alcoholic mother. He desperately wants to be a real police officer. In uniform he manifests offensive power trips on a daily basis at work, He lusts after a hot babe (Anna Faris) who’s way out of his league and thinks he’s a jerk.

His troubled persona propels him from one pathetic situation to another. They get increasingly bizarre as he goes off his meds and spirals into a breakdown.

There is sarcastic humor that generates some nervous laughter. But it’s all black comedy with a mean streak to boot.

There are racial stereotypes, losers on drugs, a drunken date-rape scene, and unexpected violence.

Did I mention extended full-frontal male nudity from a chubby flasher? It’s like Borat channeling the “Taxi Driver” for laughs.

JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office.