By Megan Armstrong / Asst. Inscape Editor
By Megan Armstrong / Asst. Inscape Editor
While it may seem like the easiest thing to do, raunchy comedy is surprisingly hard to pull off.
The idea of being completely offensive yet at the same time hilarious is not something every actor or filmmaker can understand.
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Hangover,” and “Step Brothers” are just a few movies that make the combination work.
“Hall Pass” had pretty high expectations, especially considering that it was directed and co-written by the Farrelly brothers, who are better known for their movies such as “There’s Something About Mary” and “Me, Myself and Irene,” unfortunately it didn’t deliver on those expectations.
The movie starts with Rick (Owen Wilson) showing pictures of when he was young to his kids, while his wife Maggie (Jenna Fischer) looking frazzled attempting to get ready to go to out while taking care of her other kid.
Fast forward to the evening, Rick and Maggie walking to the event they are attending and Rick while holding his wife’s hand totally checks out another girl as she walks by and his wife is dumbfounded by his disregard for her.
They approach their friends, Fred (Jason Sudeikis) and his wife Grace (Christina Applegate,) and proceed into the event they are attending.
The women and men separate and both proceed to talk about how Rick looked at another girl.
The event they are attending is for their friend who is getting an award for psychiatry, she proceeds to tell them that they should give their men a hall pass. A week completely free from marriage to do whatever they chose to do, no consequences.
The women instantly become defensive and tell her she is crazy and they couldn’t do that.
Eventually, both women give in and allow their husbands to have a hall pass while they leave out of town to Maggie’s parent’s house.
Considering the awesomeness of having a hall pass, one would think that the men would go crazy and go to strip clubs, Las Vegas or something substantially wild, but it’s at this point that the movie turns out to be really gross and borders on the obscene.
Both men seem to lack the skills required to pick up the women that they think they can have and end up looking stupid, not comical doing it.
Also, the directors have the men dress like seventy year old men which doesn’t really seem necessary and actually makes them look stupid even more.
Their wives on the other hand, are out enjoying really attractive men hitting on them instead. They decide that if the men can have a hall pass why can’t they.
Essentially this movie has the actors and the story line even the directors to make it awesome, but the desire to go above and beyond what has already been done in comedy is what made the movie so bad.
Based on the previews the quality of this may not be a surprise, however, the lackluster performances of Wilson, Fischer and Sudeikis is.
Sudeikis has been consistently funny on “Saturday Night Live” and Fischer is infinitely charming and adorable on “The Office.”
The film also co-stars comedy veterans Stephen Merchant, Larry Joe Campbell and Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins.
With all this comic talent in one film, it’s a wonder the Farrellys found a way to remove the humor.
The only really entertaining part of the movie was Applegate. If it were not for her performance this movie would not be worth going to see, unless you are a 15 year old boy with a perverted sense of humor.