|
Hall Pass
| Released |
11 March 2011 |
| Director |
Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly |
Starring
|
Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, Richard Jenkins |
Writer(s)
|
Pete Jones, Peter Farrelly, Kevin Barnett, Bobby Farrelly |
Producer(s)
|
Bradley Thomas, Charles B. Wessler |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
104 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy |
| Rating |
16 |
|
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Poor by any standard.
I don't understand.
I don't understand why this movie was made or why people willingly acted in it. And my lack of understanding is only set to increase over the coming months as people travel in their droves to the theatres to attend this travesty under the misassumption that the Farrelly Brothers' attachment or even the attachment of cast members like Christina Applegate, Owen Wilson et al will somehow guarantee quality. Frankly, an assumption of quality laughs because of the involvement of The Brothers Farrelly is pretty debatable in of itself but this time around they manage to commit to a level of taste that's below even their usual dubious standards. This is no Kingpin, Something About Mary or Shallow Hal with even ‘80s classic Porky's (and I somehow imagine Hall Pass was pitched as Porky's for forty year olds) easily surpassing it.
Hinged upon a simple concept wherein two women, in an attempt to better their marriages, give their husbands a week long free pass to fool around, Hall Pass is one of those movies where the main players spend a good 85% of the proceedings being so utterly despicable that when in the very end the music swells and some trite expository life lessons are rolled out, we can as an audience still do nothing but inwardly seethe at how utterly redundant as individuals these people are. And, possibly, if you're a bit prone to hyperbole, you might even mull over how utterly redundant a society that produces a film this creepy really is.
If you're hellbent on it, some kind of Farrelly completist, morbidly curious, or just a cretinous glutton for a series of unimaginative gross out gags wrapped up in the cinematic equivalent of toenail clippings you can still avoid paying the price of a cinema ticket and instead pick up Hall Pass in a couple of months time on DVD where it will be scraping the bottom of the bargain bin as assuredly as this film scrapes the bottom of the barrel for laughs.
- Cormac O’Brien |
