If you like your comedies like I like my blondes, dirty, then you will want to take Hall Pass home with you. But wait, you can’t just yet – it’s just opening in theaters today.
With Owen Wilson and Jenna Fischer playing married couple Rick & Maggie along with Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate playing their best friends, and fellow married couple, Fred & Grace, I walked into Hall Pass (a Farrelly Brothers movie) with a certain expectation. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to laugh hard. The movie surpassed my expectation, so much so in fact I plan on watching it again because I know I missed other jokes because I (along with everyone else) was laughing so much.
Now, if you are currently, or have ever been, in a romantic relationship with a fellow human being (if you’re an alien I’m not judging) then you may have asked yourself this very question, “If I could hook up with another person and not get caught would I?” Now let’s take it one step further. What if your significant other gave you a week off (yes, a whole week!) from the relationship? If you could hook up with as many people as you wanted to and you wouldn’t get in trouble for it, what would you do?
This is the situation that Rick and Fred find themselves in after Maggie and Grace become so upset over their husbands’ constant gawking of other women. They decide, thanks to the advise of Dr. Lucy (Joy Behar), to give their husbands a week off from marriage. In other words a “hall pass”. So Maggie takes the kids to her parents’ place for the week and Grace joins her. Rick and Fred are encouraged by three friends, who are happily married but want to live vicariously through the freed husbands, to embrace their newfound freedom. Of course, all sorts of wacky, incredibly funny and questionable high-jinks ensue. These Three Musketeers, or better yet, these three wise men, are brilliantly played by J.B. Smoove (Flats), Stephen Merchant (Gary) and thanks to Larry Joe Campbell (Hog-Head) I will never look at a sand trap the same way again. The movie also has some very nicely placed cameos, I don’t want to spoil the surprise on who they are.
Just like a sword a Hall Pass cuts both ways and Maggie and Grace soon discover that they too can enjoy a break from marriage. Unfortunately their adventures are nowhere near as humorous as the guys so I’m not going to focus much on them. As the week comes to an end, and after many adventures have been had, the questions become will the couples stay together? Will they go their separate ways? Or (possibly) will they go to the 2011 National Swingers Convention?
This movie is more than just a comedy, it is also educational. You will learn the dangers of: homemade brownies; why a thong can be wrong; why it is unwise to upset a DJ barista; whose lap to lay your head upon when saved from drowning; why aliens should avoid people from New Jersey (the comment will take too long to explain but there are no aliens in the movie); how a fast pitch can be a sign of something else; and, most importantly, words can hurt.
4.25 out of 5 Splendas (you have to see the movie to get the joke)
