Movie Review: Hall Pass

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To continue with last weeks weather analogy, we got hit by a big arctic cold front passing through. Was hoping for better but....no such luck. Previews for Drive Angry and just the name alone didn't seem appealing. So, maybe the Farrelly brothers' film Hall Pass would be OK and I might see a glimpse of scenes from back home in New England as they base a lot of their works out of Rhode Island. There works are not known as the thinking mans film, but hopefully good for a few laughs. A few laughs is right...very few laughs.

The basic premise is this: What would two couples do in one week's time when one spouse gives the other a "hall pass" from their marriage. Do what ever you want and there will be no consequences. The first pass is given by Maggie (Jenna Fischer) to her husband Rick (Owen Wilson). The other pass is wanted by and then given to Fred(Jason Sudeikis) by Grace (Christina Applegate). The couples are long time best friends. The ladies are upset with their husbands for looking at other women and the constant need the guys have. The idea is given to the wives by their psychologist friend Dr Lucy (Joy Behar) who says it will give the guys a way to clear up the "what if" in their lives. "What if" they didn't have wives, would they still be able to be the chick magnets they think they are? Sort of a variation of It's a Wonderful Life where everyone still knows who everyone else is but without Christmas, cold snow or crotchety old Mr Potter.

You know right off the bat they are not going to be getting as much as they thought they would. The guys and their friends debate which would be a better place to pick up women, Applebee's or Olive Garden. Really, Applelee's or Olive Garden? I wonder how much those restaurants paid for movie product placement. As a side note, neither of these restaurants have locations in Hawaii. As each day passes, the Law and Order card sting written by Mike Post, you know the sound, the doink doink, is used as a segue to clue us in that time has passed.

At the end of the week what do we get? We have all the usual suspects of a Farrelly movie. We have language, we have odd sexual innuendos, fetishes, both male and female frontal nudity, off color jokes and tons of embarrassing situations. Unfortunately this did not live up to the level of a There's Something About Mary or Dumb and Dumber. The set up for some of the jokes seemed high and ambitious but were left flopping around on the floor like Jell-o after falling off the kitchen table. Not a pretty sight.

Maybe the reason for the problems is while being set in the Northeast it was actually Georgia posing as New England and couldn't quite pull it off. The movie was rated R for crude and sexual humor throughout, language, some graphic nudity and drug use and ran for 105 minutes. If you go, stay to the end of the credits for some extra scenes.

The Movie Monkey

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