Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Plot

Paul Blart lives in West Orange, New Jersey with his young daughter Maya and his mother. Aspiring to join the New Jersey State Police, he trains at the police academy, but his hypoglycemia causes him to collapse before finishing the physical fitness test, leading Paul to take a job as a security officer at the West Orange Pavilion Mall.

Paul patrols the mall on a Segway and begins training Veck Simms, who shows little interest in the job. Meanwhile, Paul becomes acquainted with Amy Anderson, a vendor of a new kiosk. Paul meets her one evening at a restaurant with other mall employees. Things initially go well, but when Paul participates in a nacho-eating contest with his friend Leon, the jalapeño peppers prove too spicy for him, and he chugs two glasses of margarita, mistaking it for lemonade. He gets drunk and makes a wild exit by falling through a window.

Two days later on Black Friday, an organized gang of thugs disguised as Santa's Village employees begin a heist inside the mall. They take Amy, Stuart, Leon, Mr. Ferguson and the bank workers hostage in the bank, and Veck is revealed to be the gang's leader. The goons force the majority of shoppers to exit the mall and place motion sensors at each entrance to detect any attempt to enter or exit the building.

Paul is oblivious as he plays Rock Band before walking back into the mall to discover that it is nearly empty. He calls the police and leaves the mall, but realizes that Amy is still inside when he spots her car and returns to the mall to look for her. A SWAT team arrives with commander James Kent at the helm. Kent, a former classmate and bully from Paul's childhood, takes control of the police units and orders Blart to let them handle the situation. Paul refuses and attempts a rescue. Vastly outnumbered, he takes a stand against Veck's crew, improvising to take them down one by one. He discovers credit card codes written in invisible ink on the burglars' arms, realizing that their plans go beyond robbing the bank.

Unaware of this, Maya shows up at the mall to bring Paul some food, but Veck's henchmen seize her and add her to the hostages. Paul manages to subdue all of Veck's accomplices and attempts to rescue the hostages by pulling them up into the air vent. The plan fails when Leon does not fit. Veck enters the room, capturing Paul and forcing him to give up the codes recorded on his cell phone. Veck flees, taking Amy and Maya with him. As the SWAT team raids the mall, Paul borrows a display minivan with Kent, pursuing Veck to the airport, where he is attempting to escape to the Cayman Islands.

Production

Production began in late February 2008 in Boston. Principal photography took place at the Burlington Mall in Burlington, Massachusetts, after being denied a permit to film at Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey. From late February until mid-April, the mall and its stores were decorated with Christmas decorations, and there was a large prop ball-pit in the main foyer of the mall near the Sears branch, and a Santa's Village at the opposite end near the Macy's branch where the mall usually puts its own Santa's Village. Interior filming took place mostly at night. Some of the aerial stunts, such as Blart being attacked in the scenic elevator, were performed at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, Massachusetts, as the Burlington Mall's construction did not allow for some of these stunts.

Reception

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 34% of 116 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Paul Blart: Mall Cop has some laughs, but its plot is flimsy and lacking in any sustained comic momentum." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one star out of four, panning the concept and juvenile humor.

Variety's Brian Lowry called it "An almost shockingly amateurish one-note-joke comedy."

James Berardinelli was also unimpressed by the juvenile tone, but praised the character of Paul Blart and a refreshing change from Adam Sandler's typical films calling it "a passable choice for watching at home, when viewers tend to be less demanding."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three stars out of four, praising the film's "wholesome" comedy.

Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the film a grade C−, calling it "a shamelessly sentimental comedy with a few crude gags thrown in arbitrarily" which "turns into a stale riff on Die Hard."

Box office

The film ranked #1 at the domestic box office with $9,791,368 from 3,144 theaters for an opening day average of $3,105. During the film's entire three-day opening weekend, it remained at the top spot, grossing a total of $31,832,636, with a per screen average of $10,125, outgrossing its $26 million budget. It grossed $39,234,238 over the entire four-day MLK weekend, for a four-day average of $12,479. The film was the second best opening of all-time for the MLK weekend, behind 2008's Cloverfield. The film stayed at number one in its second weekend, grossing another $21,623,182, dropping just 32%, and boosting the ten day income to $64,923,380. In its third weekend it dropped to second place with $13,872,751, a 36% decline from the last weekend, for an average of $4,327 from 3,206 theaters, bringing the seventeen day gross to $83,247,655. In its fourth weekend, it dropped to fifth place with $10,884,825, a drop of 22% from the last weekend, for an average of $3,435 from 3,169 theaters, and bringing the 24-day tally to $96,886,687. In its fifth weekend (President's Day weekend), it dropped to sixth place, making another $10,983,319 over the three-day span, actually increasing 1%, for an average of $3,704 from 2,965 theaters, and bringing the 31-day total to $109,787,819, having broken the $100 million mark on Friday February 13. Over the four-day President's Day weekend, it made $13,574,027 for an average of $4,578, and bringing the 32-day cume to $112,388,524. The film closed on Monday, May 25, 2009, with a final domestic gross of $146,336,178, with the three-day opening weekend making up 21.75% of the total gross (26.81% for the four-day opening weekend). The film had as of 2009 made $36,625,591 internationally, bringing the total worldwide gross to $183,293,131, against a modest $26 million budget.

Home media

Paul Blart: Mall Cop was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and UMD on May 19, 2009, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The DVD sold 1,817,747 copies, making US $29,411,146 for the week of May 24, 2009, having only been out for six days, and it ranked No. 1 for DVD sales that week as well. For the week of May 31, 2009, it again made No. 1 on the US DVD Charts as it sold an additional 553,681 copies and making US$9,921,964 for a total of 2,834,826 units sold with earnings of US$46,676,902 as of November 1, 2009. As of November 1, 2009, when combined with box office results and total DVD sales, the film has grossed a total of US$227,126,523.

Sequel

Sony expressed interest in producing a sequel to the film in January 2009. In early 2014, it was confirmed that the studio was moving forward, and shooting began in April 2014. Andy Fickman was hired to direct the sequel, while Kevin James co-wrote the script with Nick Bakay and returned to star in the leading role. The sequel was titled Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and released on April 17, 2015.