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Movies & TV

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

PAUL BLART: MALL COP (Sony, 2009) D: Steve Carr, w/ Kevin James, Keir O’Donnell. Rating: NN DVD package: NNNN Rating: NN


If you can choke down the first 40 minutes, this turns into a moderately funny Die-Hard-in-a-mall action comedy, helped along considerably by the casting of real X Gamers as baddies.

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This is a Happy Madison picture. That’s Adam Sandler’s company, and you know what that means: leaden pacing, every obvious story beat overemphasized, mock sentiment set to cheesy power ballads, and too few funny gags for too much time.

Once the baddies lock down the mall, the movie lifts off, and so does star Kevin James. His Paul Blart is a fat loser with nothing much to do in the beginning but show keenness for the job, yearning for the girl (Jayma Mays, who does little but looks great) and self-pity. In Bruce Willis mode, he gets to fling himself around with an enjoyably comic lack of agility.

The X Gamers provide lots of snappy bike, skateboard and parkour (aka free running) stunts. They’re the best part of both the movie and the extras, where they get seven of the 11 docs to strut their stuff.

EXTRAS James and producer Todd Garner commentary, four making-of and seven fun-on-the-set docs, deleted scenes. Widescreen. English, French audio and subtitles. English subtitled commentary.

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