"Observe and Report" is arguably the best mall-cop comedy of the year. Yet such a heady claim invites scrutiny. While it's true that this rude movie coerces more laughs than the flaccid "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," the laughs are the kind that make you feel creepy, like gawking at a man who's running naked through a shopping center.

That actually happens in "Observe and Report," and it's a dream come true for Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen), the head of security at a suburban mall. Ronnie's a bipolar bully with a weapons fetish, a foul mouth and a fly sidekick (Michael Pena).

But Ronnie is also a deluded romantic who's got a puppy-dog crush on a makeup salesgirl named Brandy (the wonderfully shameless Anna Faris), perhaps because she's a drunken floozy like his mom (Celia Weston).

So when a flasher in a trench coat traumatizes Brandy, Ronnie smothers her with unwanted attention and applies to join the local police force so he can legally exterminate the vermin.

History will attest that the most frequently occurring character in the comedies of this decade has been the self-inflated blowhard who is actually a pinhead, but in the hands of man-child Rogen, Ronnie is several degrees to the right of a blustering Ben Stiller or Will Ferrell.

We watch in shock as this wannabe cop engages in date rape, hard-drug abuse and vigilante mayhem that seems derived from repeated viewings of "Taxi Driver." Some of the slapstick is brutally funny, but the laughs are like involuntary confessions elicited by a taser.

"Observe and Report" is the evil twin of "Paul Blart," which had a soft heart but no nerve. This flick is almost criminally cynical, but delinquents will think there's something arresting about a movie whose mission is disturbing the peace.