THERE'S NO accounting for taste. Since it opened in January, this low-budget yarn has taken close on $140 million at the US box-office. That's more than the combined US earnings of Oscar contenders Milk, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road.

The unanticipated success of Paul Blart: Mall Copis mystifying, even at a time when there is a hunger for undemanding escapism. Perhaps it's because the simplistic storyline takes on the popular theme of an underdog triumphing against all the odds. Or it could be attributed to the unlikely rise of gormless TV actor Kevin James.

James plays Paul Blart, an overweight security guard at a New Jersey shopping centre. Turned down for a job as a state trooper, Blart behaves absurdly officiously, as when he pursues a pensioner he accuses of “driving kinda recklessly” in a motorised wheelchair.

Divorced from his wife, Blart lives with his mother (Shirley Knight) and teen daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez), and falls for Amy (Jayma Mays), who sells hair extensions from a kiosk.

Although promoted as a comedy, the movie jettisons any laughs after some half-hearted slapstick and turns into a low-rent, utterly conventional action-adventure when thieves take over the mall during Thanksgiving weekend, predictably taking Maya and Amy as hostages. Inevitably, Blart comes to the rescue, using merchandise from the stores and stalls as weapons – and as glaring product placement.

In a calculated attempt to target as many niche audiences as possible, director Steve Carr (who inflicted Dr Dolittle 2and Daddy DayCare on us) ladles on slushy sentimentality before the movie lazily grinds to its blindingly obvious conclusion. And the production values are tackier than in a third-rate TV show.

Directed by Steve Carr. Starring Kevin James, Keir O'Donnell, Jayma Mays, Raini Rodriguez, Shirley Knight, Bobby Cannavale PG cert, gen release, 91 min *