10 Awesome Films That Never Got The Cult Following They Deserved 

The Film:

Observe And Report takes place in Ronnie Barnhardt's world, the Forest Ridge Mall. As head of security, Ronnie sees himself as the God of the shopping mall, though make-up counter assistant and girl of his dreams Brandi (Anna Faris) fails to recognise his presence. When an anonymous flasher exposes himself to her in the mall parking lot, the police are called and Ronnie misses his chance to be her hero.

Attending officer Harrison (Ray Liotta) ridicules Ronnie as a rent-a-cop and belittles his chances of making it on the force, going on to use his status to sleep with Brandi. The pair end up in a fight over the girl, one that costs Ronnie his job and his torch. He keeps his gun, however, and uses it to shoot the flasher, drag him to the police station and proclaim himself a hero.

Why It Never Got The Cult Following It Deserved:

There are two reasons that the ball never really got rolling with Observe And Report in terms of a real cult following, the first being the casting of Seth Rogen. Ronnie was far from what audiences had come to know as a Seth Rogen character, and (rather ironically, as the Canadian is often accused of being typecast) the film was criticised for it.

Director Jody Hill might have been better off sticking with Danny McBride, who starred in her previous movie The Foot Fist Way and was already recognisable as the type of almost-likeable a**hole that Ronnie is. In the end, the people that went to see Observe And Report went in search of a typical Seth Rogen movie and found a jet-black comedy.

The dark content was the second reason the film suffered, berated by unsuspecting viewers as trash and killed by word of mouth, though had the advertising campaign shown more of what this film was really about it might have found its intended audience. This massively underrated movie, full of highly quotable monologue from Ronnie, missed its chance for cult status.