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Hall Pass: Take a Pass

By Ria Tesia · March 13, 2011

Many would disagree, but being a consistently fantastic film producer would be boring. Granted, you’d be sitting pretty on piles of cash, swinging your legs in apathy as you smugly peer below from the rooftop of your trillion dollar mansion. The Farrelly Brothers don’t have to worry about this – their latest offering is yet another anodyne project, which is so very far from fantastic.

After constantly ogling other women and setting in motion a series of embarrassing instances, Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are given a week of marriage by their long suffering wives, Maggie and Grace (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate), to do whatever the hell they want. As both wives decamp to the beach for a week, the story is set for our horny heroes to fulfil their wildest desires and “reel in the babes.”

The “Hall Pass” concept is an intriguing experiment, and I was initially curious to see how Wilson and Sudeikis would spend their week of freedom. It’s human nature to want something more if you can’t have it. Trust me, I should know (that Haagen Dazs Cookies and Cream stalks me during the first week of Lent like a pack of Siberian Tigers hunting down a “not so” wild boar).But as restrictions are removed, so is the ‘fun factor’ and therefore, the object of desire loses its appeal. Given carte blanche, I wondered if Wilson and Sudeikis would do the deed, so to speak. I soon stopped caring.

Puerile gags galore, clichéd dialogue, and a lacklustre script made this film rather tedious to watch. And as Samuel Johnson plainly put it, “Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.” Wilson’s hot-tub scene was uninspired drivel, the bathroom scene ticked the box for contrived gross-out humor, and there’s nothing funny about forced full frontal nudity (what are we, twelve?). Who was the target audience for the film anyway? Teenagers? Bored adults with nothing better to do? Men teetering dangerously on the cliff edge of a mid-life crisis? Interestingly enough, the theater was filled with couples, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the film would inspire any of them to ask for, or be granted a “hall pass”. (Yes, I found myself inventing stories in my head just to stop yawning into a coma).

Wilson played to type as the lovable buffoon with a heart of gold. Sudeikis was surprisingly good (his comic timing decent). Stephen Merchant’s performance as Gary could have faded into the background had it not been for his ridiculous cravat (I know he was a caricature of an uptight British guy, but there are more intelligent ways to portray a Brit humorously). I had the feeling Coakley (Richard Jenkins) reminded me of someone familiar, yet I was unable to place exactly who until I tuned in to CNN later that evening. Imagine a sinewy, slimy Piers Morgan wearing all black with borrowed jewellery from Mr. T. (Maybe I imagined it, but that just goes to show the dullness, the tedium, the monotony – pick your noun of choice – that I painstakingly endured. Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton had it easier when he and his 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition were stranded in the Antarctic Circle for 20 months).

Despite Hall Pass ending on a (surprise, surprise), upbeat note and great chemistry between Wilson and Sudeikis, this wasn’t enough to save the film. Although I’m not a huge fan of the Farrelly Brothers, I will always have a soft spot for them (kudos for There’s Something About Mary). But there is no getting away from the fact that Hall Pass is a huge disappointment. This hit and miss – mostly miss – “comedy” might have been a blast to film. But just because it’s a “high concept” idea and casted with likable actors that may or may not have a good time “doing their shtick”, does not automatically equate to a “good time” for the audience. Honestly, I would have rather spent my money on a gyro and chips and the next two hours watching a spider crawl up my wall. Yes, Hall Pass really is that bad.