DVD Reviews

Hall Pass - Blu-ray Review

By Dana Rae Aug 3, 2011, 18:06 GMT

A married man is granted the opportunity to have an affair by his wife. Joined in the fun by his best pal things get a out of control when both wives start engaging in extramarital activities as well. ...more

With titles like Me, Myself & Irene, There's Something About Mary, and Kingpin to their credit, the Farrelly Brothers are expected to bring the laughs and even something maybe a little too outrageous for the screen. Sadly, the duo fall a tad flat with Hall Pass – which has all the hallmarks of a modern raunchy comedy but feels too formulaic.

Hall Pass stars Owen Wilson as Rick, a thirty-something married guy who, along with his best friend Fred (played by Jason Sudeikis), is kind of a stuck-in-the-mud dweeb.

The two of them, if they weren’t married, couldn’t get a date or score if they tried. They are the type of married men that make a quick turn-about look to check out a woman’s goods. And they think they are so slick about that it and their wives don’t notice.

The wives do notice and laugh at their men. Christina Applegate plays Grace and Jenna Fischer plays Maggie. The two women decide to have some fun at Rick and Fred’s expense and tell them they have a ‘hall pass’ for one week.

This hall pass, also the title of the movie, represents the immaturity of the men and, and in my opinion, ultimately of the film. Where does one obtain a hall pass? High school. Perhaps junior high. And also in my opinion, that is where the range of the humor in this movie falls.

The hall pass entitles both boys, um, men, to do whatever they want for one week. They are ecstatic and think that this is the answer to their dreams. Only in the movies, people, do shmucks that look like Wilson and Sudeikis have wives that look like Applegate and Fischer. And they are more than happy to go a-cheating without any type of remorse or code of ethics!

With humor that falls very flat on the face of a very unfunny movie, they proceed to try and win their hearts’ desire: someone other than their wives that they can sleep with. Crude? Yes. Typical Owen Wilson comedy? Definitely yes.

Applegate and Fischer give decent performances but when the tables turn and allow the women to rule their domain and give their husbands a little of their own medicine, it comes a little too late to save the movie. Or, if this were a reality check, either one of the marriages. But very little reality is inserted into this fizzled farce.

Predictability is the key word for this film. Don’t expect too much and be prepared to exercise your jaw with too much yawning. I also wish that filmmakers would learn that frontal male nudity is not funny no matter how many times you show Wilson’s face buried in a nude man’s crotch.

Hall Pass will give you a chuckle or two, but it fails to deliver the kind of laughs you would expect from everyone involved. It reminds of a Judd Apatow film, and not one of his good ones.

Coming from comedy geniuses like The Farrelly Brothers, this film just feels like a letdown and something you could skip all together. If you want some laughs, I suggest you take a hall pass from this film and just pop in Something About Mary or Kingpin again.