If you were wondering if "Hall Pass" marked the return of the Farrellys, why yes it does, thank you very much.
If you were just thinking, "I didn't know the Farrellys directed 'Hall Pass,' " you're not alone. I noticed somewhere they did direct it, and I still forgot.
If (last one, promise) you just want to hear about the movie, keep reading: "Pass" is the story of Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis, most famously from "Saturday Night Live"), two long-married, domesticated schlubs who are just realizing they're living the American dream — good jobs, hot wives, and, at least in Rick's case, children.
But just as middle-age spread starts to settle in, the boys' ladies (Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer) decide through a series of Hollywood contrivances to give their boys a one-week "hall pass"; that is, a weeklong furlough from wedded bliss, giving them full, unfettered access to unwedded bliss as they see fit.
Now, if you're anything like me, you hear this premise and think, "These women are so totally setting their husbands up," and in this day and age you might even think there are legal ramifications as well. But let's just assume for the sake of the film that this is all legit, so...
Our happily married chaps turn into simpering horndogs who naturally know nothing about what women want given, you know, they've spent the last decade-plus learning first-hand what makes them happy.
That leads me to my first quibble with films of this sort, which postulate that married men, thrust back on the open market, turn to simpering morons around women. It stands to reason they'd be able to charm a naive young woman pretty easily given that they know what makes women tick (though, once I think about it, I still don't know, and I've been married for more than a decade).
Anyway, all this notwithstanding, we have some big raunchy laughs, and in true Farrelly Brothers style, a lot of jokes that fall flat. There are some rather easy penis jokes (including a few that, shall we say, play on certain stereotypes) as well as your typical situational humor, mostly involving dorky married guys who do things like go to Applebee's as an evening hotspot to pick up hotties.
Meanwhile, their wives head to an undisclosed location where they take up with a semi-pro baseball team (no joke, though it's not quite as tawdry as it could be) and soon find their own fidelity tested.
Along the way, Rick pines for Leigh (an impossibly hot Nicky Whelan), the foxy barista who gets the boys their coffee, while Fred, easily the more self-assured of the duo, struggles.
Will the guys seal the deal? Will the ladies ultimately resent their guys' permitted infidelity?
While I have to admit I didn't know which direction the film was going to go, there aren't any real surprises here, and you're not going to get any "Indecent Proposal"-type ruminations on relationships and forgiveness. This is straight romcom-type stuff.
There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and "Pass" certainly gets one given its laughs. Neither is it impossibly dumb, and of course the laughs make it easier to forgive.
The supporting cast isn't as full as it could be, with Stephen Merchant playing the lead third wheel, but Richard Jenkins gets a rollicking cameo as the almost legendary single guy who knows everything about scoring chicks.
"Pass" certainly represents the best the Farrellys have come up with in recent years. It's a decent-enough date night movie, but beware, guys: If your woman asks you what you'd do if you had a hall pass, there's only one right answer.
3.5 Yaps