PAUL BLART: MALL COP

Overall Impression – A big hit with small laughs.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS

Who is your main character? – Paul Blart.

What is he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Protect the mall. Personal: Get Amy to love him. Private: Not be the loser he’s always been all his life.

Who’s trying to stop him? – Veck Sims, the leader of the crooks trying to rob the mall.

What happens if he fails? – Veck escapes with both Amy and Paul’s daughter. 

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES

Orphan – Paul has been abandoned by his wife, has failed the test 8 times to be a state trooper, is overweight and lonely.

Wanderer – After a setup that goes on waaaaaaaay too long, the mall is taken over by crooks.  At first, Paul tries to figure out what’s going on.  After running into one of the robbers and escaping, Paul realizes that the mall is under siege.  He wants to escape, and makes it out of the mall only to realize that Amy’s car is still in the parking lot.  He turns around and goes back in.

Warrior – Paul hapless encounters several robbers around the mall, knocking them out.  He makes it to where the hostages are being held captive and tries to get them out, unsuccessfully.

Martyr – Veck escapes and Blart pursues.  He eventually stops him and saves the day, winning Amy’s love.  Blart is offered a spot as a state trooper and he declines, instead opting to stay on at the mall.

AND, IN THE END…

There’s nothing terribly wrong about PAUL BLART: MALL COP, and I found it interesting for what it sort of understood about the conventions of the “DIE HARD in an office building/aircraft carrier/airport/jumbo jet” genre.  The movie borrows so heavily from DIE HARD that it’s obviously meant to be as much homage as rip-off.

When you see this movie — IF you see this movie  — ignore the goofiness of the bad guys (skateboards and BMX bikes?!?!?!?) and learn from all of the things that the film does almost right; there were too many third act solutions, the obstacles in act two don’t really become increasingly difficult, the martyr moment doesn’t lead to the main character’s success, and the main character gives up his life-long dream for no real reason.  These were all things that could have been easily fixed in the scripting…but hindsight is 20-20.  Assuming you know what to look for.

— Jeffrey Alan Schechter