‘Hall Pass’ is the latest Farrelly Brothers (‘There’s Something About Mary’) comedy opening today at Regal Gallery Place. The movie stars Owen Wilson, some guy from Saturday Night Live, the boring receptionist from ‘The Office’ and Al Bundy’s daughter. The premise involves the wives giving their husbands a week off from their marriage to date other women. The men see this as a reward, and the women see it as a lesson to teach their husbands how lucky they are. See if you can get who gets laid during this week off from marriage.
‘Hall Pass’ has a few funny moments, but overall it’s pretty stupid. The Farrelly Brothers feel this compelling need to add ‘heart’ to their comedies. They try it in this case and frankly it’s just uncomfortable. Switching back and forth from scenes where characters are wondering if their spouse is cheating to scenes with explosive diarrhea attacks leaves the audience with whiplash. Why not write dramas with a little comedy sprinkled in?
Conceptually, there’s nothing really funny about this, the setup can be found on any network sitcom. Every guy is an out-of-shape buffoon, and every woman endures him because she really loves him and always knows what is best. The notion of a hall pass is stupid, do you think John Kennedy asked Jackie for a hall pass? No, he went out and got laid and laughed about it with the Rat Pack. Also, these heartfelt moments in the film seem to try to guide the audience toward a lesson about love and marriage. If the Farrelly Brothers want to teach people about the consequences of infidelity, they should have dropped Owen Wilson and hired O.J. Simpson. Now that would be a movie!
Another weird thing that happens in this film is that three characters, friends of the husbands, just disappear. They hang out with them for a few days, then literally just say goodbye and that’s it. There’s also a decent amount of full frontal male nudity, I’m talking up close shots. I’m not a fan of nudity in comedies. Dramas, fine, as long as the director gives me something I can try out later. The fact that the Farrelly Brothers resort to showing schlongs to get a laugh from the audience makes me think they aren’t talented.
My favorite Farrelly Brothers movie is probably a toss-up between ‘Dumb and Dumber’ and ‘Kingpin.’ The former offers a lesson into the weakness they have for going for the sugary moments. At the end of ‘Dumb and Dumber’, Jim Carrey’s character has a chance for a happy ending by getting on the bus with a bunch of models. The film was written for Carrey to get on the bus, but Carrey refused to do it, and insisted on the ending we see in the film, where he just gives them directions.
If you are desperate for a laugh, you might want to try out ‘Hall Pass’, but be advised you will need to sit through a lot of garbage to get to those moments. Real-time (sort of) Oscar updates coming on Sunday, then next week ‘The Adjustment Bureau.’
