Paul Blart: Mall Cop
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The Story
Things haven’t been going well for hefty mall security guard Paul Blart (Kevin James, TV’s “King of Queens”), who lives with his mom and daughter and can’t pass the state trooper test due to his chronic hypoglycemia. But his chance to shine arrives when the mall is taken over by an acrobatic team of bank robbers who threaten several hostages, including the pretty girl Blart has fallen for. The time has come for Blart’s “Die Hard” moment of glory.
Content Issues
The PG-rated “Blart” skips the crude content that comes with most films from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. God’s name is used for swearing a few times, but very little other harsh language is heard. The action violence is often played for laughs. Bathroom humor is mild and limited.
Worldview Talking Points
Blart is mocked for taking his role as a mall security guard too seriously, and he does overdo it. That’s part of the joke here. But Blart’s best quality is that he refuses to treat his job like a joke. That commitment is undervalued until the moment when someone really needs him.
The worldview section in our PlanetWisdom.com review of the film focused on how Blart’s unwillingness to treat his own lightly paid off when the moment of truth came.
You won’t find a lot of meat to chew on with your student after viewing the silly “Paul Blart,” but here are a few discussion questions that might kick off a decent conversation about respect, personal responsibility, and making the most of our opportunities.
- How do you treat security guards at stores, school, or the mall? Do you think being a security guard would be a hard job?
- Do you ever feel like something you have to do—a job, an assignment, a chore—might not be worth trying too hard to do well? Why or why not?
- What would you say are some of the jobs and responsibilities you have right now? How hard would you say you try to do those things well or right?
- Do you think it matters to do everything that’s ours to do as well as we can?
- Do you have friends or know people who don’t take their work or studies seriously enough? What are the consequences of that?
- Why does it make sense to do the best you possibly can, even on a “dead-end” job or mindless chore? (See Luke 16:10.)
- How can doing our best at “little things” lead to opportunities to do bigger and bigger things?
- If you get the opportunity, tell your student about your own experience with doing little things well (or not) and the consequences of those choices.
