Stuck on You, Shallow Hal, Osmosis Jones, The Heartbreak Kid — the Farrelly Brothers have certainly churned out some real classics in the last decade or so. With a Cavalierian streak like that, the pair was bound to come up with one reasonably funny, slightly humorous movie, right?
Nope.
Hall Pass stars Jason Sudeikis and Owen Wilson as Fred and Rick, two horny (as the film will continually beat over your head) 40-something pals who are a bit bored with their lives and marriages. Habitually inappropriate, constantly offensive, the two love their wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) but are continually embarrassing them with their prolonged and vulgar adolescence.
So the wives, doing what any reasonable spouse would do in this situation, decide to give their husbands a week to go out and bang any girl they want, no questions asked, because that’s what will solve their marital problems. The clueless and gameless Fred and Rick, of course, don’t find the going as easy as originally thought, as they run through pick-up lines, beers and a worthless middle of the movie. Meanwhile the wives, for whatever reason on vacation in Cape Cod, start to face their own problems in the form of two beefcake baseball hotties and disrupt any kind of flow the movie has.
The ending won’t be spoiled here, except to say no, you don’t get to see Pam from The Office naked. Owen Wilson? Sort of.
Up to their usual tricks, the Farrellys try to induce laughs mainly by forcing the audience to cringe with their (once) trademark lowbrow humor. While that worked exceptionally in There’s Something About Mary, it just comes off as desperate here. Masturbation, full-frontal, fake oral sex and countless variations on how to say vagina will only get a movie so far.
The jokes are tolerable, even funny, when the guys are out with their bros, attempting to pick up chicks at Applebee’s and embarking on a pot brownie-fueled golf course outing. But, inexplicably, Stephen Merchant and J.B. Smoove (Leon, for any Curb Your Enthusiasm fans) disappear a third of the way in, and so do any chances for humor as the film hopelessly tries to look at the complications the hall pass scenario had created.
It seems self-defining that taboo-pushing trendsetters will eventually be caught as the competition catches on and replicates. What’s startling is just how far behind the pack the Farrelly Brothers have fallen.
In trying to create their own sex-fueled buddy flick with Hall Pass, not only have they turned into the copycats, they’ve created an unfunny, borderline misogynistic and laughless would-be-romp that’s definitely a pass.
—Cameron Dunbar is a sophomore studying journalism. He’s dreadfully in need of good pick-up lines. Send yours to cd211209@ohiou.edu.
@ThePostCulture
