When I first started seeing trailers for this movie, I thought it looked like it had the potential to be a truly amusing comedy, the likes of which are in such short supply these days. However, my trepidation towards the film shot up upon discovering that the film was produced by Happy Madison Productions, Adam Sandler’s film company. Judging by the large number of mediocre films that his production company put out, one could make a reasonable case that the company was put together solely to offer Sandler’s friends the opportunity to make their own films, rather than to try to produce movies that are actually good. Considering that most of these films have shared Adam Sandler’s particular brand of low-brow humor, which a lot of people don’t seem to care for, I was worried that the film would be more uncomfortable than it was entertaining.

That wasn’t the case though. Mall Cop managed to be both amusing and entertaining, although it came up short of being laugh-out-loud funny. The film focuses on titular protagonist Paul Blart, who seems to have come up short in fulfilling his life goal of becoming a patrol officer. Out of shape, a single parent, and still living with his mom, Paul has become the next best thing-A security guard in a large scale shopping mall. While his co-workers are blasé about their dead-end jobs as mall security, Paul’s work becomes his sole passion in life, and he takes his job with all the seriousness one would expect of a beat officer. But no matter how hard Paul tries, he just can’t seem to get out of his loser lifestyle, and things go from bad to worse when he finds himself caught in the middle of a plot to take over the shopping mall.

Paul Blart is a character that is both likeable and relatable; Kevin James’ portrayal goes a long way towards keeping the comedy anchored in reality. The style of this film almost hearkens back to some of the classic comedies of the 80’s; I could see John Candy playing this role, as well as the influence of such classic films as Police Academy and similar cop comedies. It’s still a very modern film with its own story to tell, however.  Speaking of story, the film doesn’t devolve into a gag-a-minute fest, but rather involves a multi-faceted plot with some comedy thrown in. It’s pretty well done for a Happy Madison film. And there are some surprising stunts and action sequences to boot.
In short, this is a pleasant family film. There’s some stuff here for everyone and the movie has a feel-good quality to it. It isn’t the best cop comedy you can find, but it isn’t trying to be that either. It does a decent job of being its own film. And for that reason alone, you should give this movie a chance.