Geekscape Movie Reviews: Hall Pass
Hall Pass is the latest movie from The Farrelly Brothers (Me, Myself, & Irene, Stuck On You). Bobby Farrelly and his elder brother by two years, Peter Farrelly are both well known for incorporating ludicrous and nearly obscene story lines into contemporary film. The infamous zipper scene in There’s Something About Mary with Ben Stiller comes to mind. They give you a glimpse of something that totally catches you off guard, and it’s sort of gross, but still manages to be laugh out loud funny.
The Brothers continue along the same lines in Hall Pass in which they try to out-do themselves with outrageous glimpses of married life, portrayed in comedic and sometimes disgustingly hilarious ways on the screen. The Farrelly Brothers have a track record, some 15 films that they have either written, directed, and or produced since the early 1990’s with their break out movie, Dumb and Dumber.
Two everyday family guys, Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are best friends who have each been married for many years and are described in the movie by Rick’s wife, Maggie (Jenna Fischer) as “two domesticated cats scratching at the door to go out,” after she catches her husband blatantly checking out another woman’s booty on a date night. Fred’s wife, Grace (Christina Applegate), thinks that their husbands are more like dogs wanting to spread their seed about town.
When the two men begin to show ever increasing signs of restlessness and relationship boredom, their wives take a bold approach to revitalizing their individual marriages: granting them a “hall pass,” as in, one week of freedom to do whatever they want…no questions asked.
Why would the wives agree to such a thing as a hall pass? Well, that’s what The Farrelly Brothers set out to explore.
Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers) gets caught checking out another lady’s booty in front of his wife, and in return she fakes being asleep rather than getting-it-on later that night. The seed is literally not planted and even though they love each other, you can see the marriage is going through a rough patch. Hall Pass explores from a comedic stance that while there can be genuine love in a marriage, it can gradually lose it’s way amongst domestication, kids, and responsibilities.
Joy Bahar, from The View, plays a minor character who lets the wives in on how she makes her marriage work. She gives her husband a hall pass, and explains how it’s all about reverse psychology. Let them have what they want, and the bored hubby’s will no longer want it.
Christina Applegate (Going The Distance, Anchor Man) and Jason Sudeikis (Going The Distance, What Happens In Vegas) play the other married couple with complimentary marriage issues. After the ladies take off on their own week of discovery away from home, the guys check in to the local Comfort Suites Hotel, because in the words of Fred, “it just wouldn’t be cool to bring the hot models [that they are going to hook up with] back to their homes…” with family pictures and kids toys strewn about; and besides, “they might become stalkers.”
Their delusions of grandeur begin out at the local Applebees, along side their buddies who want to live vicariously through them, but is this a place that they will find “hot models” that want to get laid?
Hall Pass has a healthy amount of laugh out loud moments and plenty of wise cracks to share around the water cooler as the guys discover that they got no game. I consider Hall Pass to be in the same spirit as 2003’s Old School, in which Owen Wilson’s younger brother, Luke Wilson starred, but not quite as funny.
Also playing a key role in the film, Richard Jenkins (Let Me In, Step Brothers), as Coakley, the old guy with game and apparently the skill to divine which ladies are desperate enough to give it up. His character adds just the right touch of comical desperation and insight into people as to why they do, what they do. He comes across as likable even though he’s praying upon people’s weaknesses a bit like the character’s from Wedding Crashers and very much like Chaz (Will Farrell) who had come up with the rules in that film.
The Farrelly Brothers are extremely talented in creating stories that hit on important issues that everyone can empathize with while telling it in a funny way, often with memorable scenes illustrating physical comedy.
Hall Pass fills a tall order by basically being what appears on the surface as a guy film, but is also part chic-flick. Their movie appeals to both sexes, but the cost in doing so, is that they have to spend more time on character motivation and less on the ridiculous which is what they do so well.
On the other hand, that could be a good thing, as it gives us more insight to the wives plight, but less screen time for a large load of gross out, comedy. It’s a precarious balance that finds its way somewhere along the lines of average with highlights of insanity like the sick, drunk girl and her blow out. Which was my favorite part of the film (that still gets me to chuckling as I write this).
As a final thought on the characters, all are never portrayed as bad or even permanently flawed. They are ordinary, loving, average people. So often, when a man (or woman) goes outside of the marriage in a story they are portrayed as this terrible, cheating dog. Adding to the mix, the person that comes between them, is portrayed as a conniving home wrecker. In this film, all of the characters, including the very sexy “home wrecker,” Leigh (Nicky Whelan) are all so like-able. Rather than create some stereotypical characters, with a bitter and ugly wife (or hubby) The Brothers did a fantastic job keeping all of their creations as good, honest people, doing the best that they are capable of in their marriages. Taking that route and staying away from stereotypes is just another reason to like the film.
The Farrelly Brothers love them some shock value, and Hall Pass certainly has that. They prove once again that crude and ludicrous can be funny. Under 30’s won’t get this film entirely and teenagers would do better to wait for the DVD and a lonely Saturday night to view. The rest, who are happily married or just pretending, will find some joy in this.
Look for The Farrelly Brothers next project, The Three Stooges, in 2012 set to star Richard Jenkins.
