BEFORE: Before starting this movie late on Thursday, I watched the pilot of the new "Superman and Lois" show on the CW. Or is it the WB? Nah, that was the old name for that network and nobody else remembers that. Of course I'm going to keep up on any Superman-based TV shows, because I watched the hell out of "Smallville" for all its seasons - but "Superman and Lois" is unfortunately no "Smallville". This new version stars Tyler Hoechlin (who also appears in "Hall Pass", quite coincidentally) as an older Superman, married to Lois and father of two teenage sons. Apparently there's some debate over the existence of two sons, since Superman only has ONE in the comic book, and only one in the TV world until some "Crisis on Infinite Earths" TV crossover re-booted and changed reality, or Earth-38 combined with Earth-Prime or something like that. TV viewers, if you don't read the comics, welcome to the frustrating world of the multiverse, where each new writer can just change what came before on a whim, just by saying, "Oh, it's a multiverse, and there are many realities - HERE's the one we're pushing now."
Look, I've been reading comics (and watching TV) for a long time. I get it, you work with what you have, and if it's not working, you try to change it around so it does. But making Clark Kent a parent who's AFRAID to tell his sons that he's Superman, that just doesn't work - Superman shouldn't be AFRAID of anything, let alone the truth. Remember "Truth, Justice and the American Way"? Yeah, lying to your kids is a violation of truth, even if he did it for their own good. One of the teens has Social Anxiety Disorder, plus he didn't want to foster resentment between the kids if one develops powers in the future and the other doesn't. This is some weak sauce, because lying is lying, and Superman shouldn't lie - in the comic books, he told the whole WORLD about his secret identity for this same reason, and I hope the TV show and/or the DC Movie Universe catches up with that, even if it takes a while. Big Blue should be an honest superhero, above all.
(I know, this show is part of a larger DC TV universe, which includes "Flash", "Green Arrow", "Supergirl", "Black Lightning", etc., but I don't watch any of those shows. Marvel's got my TV attention right now with "Wandavision" and very soon, "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier". Though I may consider watching "Legends of Tomorrow" on Netflix, because it's all about time-traveling through the DC universe, and I hear there's like a TON of Easter eggs.)
Christina Applegate carries over from "Crash Pad". And for Women's History month, on March 5, 1882, Dora Marsden was born - she was an English activist in the Women's Social and Political Union, and founded a journal, The Freewoman, in 1911 to showcase the voices of the women's movement, occasionally critique the Suffrage Movement, and promote a radical (at the time) feminist view. In 1920 she withdrew from the literary scene and spent 15 years in seclusion to complete her magnum opus combining elements of philosophy, mathematics, biology, physics and theology - so don't let me hear you complain about just one year stuck at home during the pandemic when you could be working on your own magnum opus.
THE PLOT: Two husbands who are having difficulty in their marriages are given a "Hall Pass" by their wives: for one week, they can do whatever they want.
AFTER: If you look below, you'll see that this film features a lot of actors making their second appearances in this year's February (and March) romance chain. Hey, there's the lead actor from "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" again, and that actress was a lead in "The Giant Mechanical Man". Richard Jenkins showed up twice, but honestly it would be a little weird if Richard Jenkins DIDN'T show up twice in February, that guy gets around. (But it's the first appearance this year for Owen Wilson, who appeared in EIGHT films last year, that's just how it goes...) So you might ask, why wasn't this film placed next to those films, or "Happythankyoumoreplease" or "Paper Heart", for that matter? Well, it's true, I had a lot of options with this film, it could have gone just about anywhere - but I NEEDED it to go here, as the only possible lead-out from "Crash Pad", and the connective tissue to tomorrow's film. Makes sense? There's a certain science to this linking thing, which only took me about a decade to properly learn.
There's quite a bit that carries over from "Crash Pad", along with Christina Applegate. Yesterday's film and "Hall Pass" are both (mainly) about two men going out to clubs and trying to get laid, in "Crash Pad" one of them is married and in today's film, both men are. In both cases, Ms. Applegate plays the wife who's aware that her husband is stepping out for this purpose, only in one film she's OK with it, at least at first. Oddly, both films also use the same song, "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & The Drells, though I think "Hall Pass" uses a cover version - still, I don't think I've ever heard this song before yesterday, and it's quite distinctive.
Overall, I think this film could have been a lot worse - and given the way this Movie Week has been going, I was expecting a lot worse. Sure, there are parts of this film that are flat-out stupid, but there are also parts that are somewhat funny and the message is (almost) sweet. Trouble begins when the female part of a two-couple friendship notices that their husbands are checking out other women, and when they hang out with their single male friends, talk inevitably turns to discussing under what conditions they would cheat on their wives. Maggie learns this about her husband, Rick, thanks to a convenient accidentally switched baby monitor, and she overhears their card-game conversation. (Actually, the husbands here get in trouble TWICE because they're unaware that they're being monitored, it's a cheap method of mining almost the same exact set-up for more "comedy".). And this was made five years before the "locker-room talk" that failed to get our last President not elected...
There are other problems in the two relationships - Rick gets caught by police pleasuring himself in his own car, outside his own house (for God's sake, why not pull the car into the garage - does he not have a garage?). Fred wonders why Rick can't just lock himself in the bathroom like most people, but there's some flimsy excuse that Rick "loves cars", another lame way to shoehorn in an embarrassing situation, when someone doesn't realize that he can be heard or seen by others. That appears to be the go-to source of most of the humor here. But essentially, both wives are tired of their husbands getting into trouble - or is it that they look at other women? The film can't really seem to decide here which is the worse marital sin.
Anyway, it's all an excuse to set up the premise, where the wives grant their husbands a "hall pass" - it really should be called a "free pass", because in school if you get a hall pass, you can use it to go to the bathroom or the school nurse, and that just doesn't apply. This film was titled "Free Pass" in some countries, I guess those countries don't have such regimented school hall-walking systems. They should have just called it "Free Pass" in the U.S. too, it would have made more sense. They've got a "Hall Pass" or free pass for one week to do whatever they want, even sexually, while the wives take the kids to Cape Cod to visit family. (Normally I'd make some N.P. here about this, but I grew up in a Boston suburb where many families had a summer home on the Cape, so driving down there for a week, especially during the summer, seems like a very common thing to me for people to do. I guess some people in Providence, R.I. might also have 2nd homes on the Cape, but isn't Rhode Island known as the Ocean State, most places would already be near some kind of beach. Just saying...maybe it's a Providence thing too.)
Yes, the film is set in Providence, as were most of the early Farrelly Brothers films, you can always count on that as a setting in their movies, along with casting a lot of their friends who had very little acting ability, and also the use of gross-out humor. Eventually these guys grew up somewhat and one of them directed "Green Book", but back in 2011 they were still making films similar to "There's Something About Mary", focused on bodily fluids, getting laid and strange sex-based anatomical mishaps. Oh, also awkward people making awkward jokes that don't really land, that seemed to be right up Jason Sudeikis' alley at the time. He got a lot cooler by the time he made "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy", but his character there was also much more of a douchebag. Still, Jason's character here (Fred) shares a lot of DNA with the guy in the Hamptons (Eric) - well, both films were released in the same year.
It's worth noting, however, that the wives who agreed to this "Hall Pass" idea were only doing it so their husbands would learn a lesson - the theory was that after a week on their own, probably trying to get laid and failing miserably, they would appreciate the good situation they had, beg their wives to come back and never think about straying again. Eh, it's an OK theory - the foil character here who gives Maggie and Grace the idea says she tried this with her own husband, let him chase other women to get it out of his system, and as a result, her marriage got stronger. However, she neglects to clarify if her husband was successful, cheated and came back, or was unsuccessful and therefore stopped trying. There's a notable difference there, some people claim that men are only as faithful as their options - and it's easier for a man to be faithful if he believes he has none.
The wives also fail to mention whether the Hall Pass applies to them, too - and perhaps they don't decide that it does until they each meet men on the Cape they enjoy spending time with. For Grace that's a younger baseball player, and for Maggie it's that guy's coach. OK, so they want in on this Hall Pass idea, but shouldn't they at least have a conversation with their husbands before acting on it? That seems only fair.
Meanwhile, the husbands ARE failing at their attempts to take advantage of their freedom - the first day they just hang out with their buddies and load up on appetizers at a chain restaurant, leaving them too full to go out clubbing that night. Then they get high on pot brownies while golfing, and that also ends badly. They almost manage to get through the whole week before they start looking for potential sexual prospects. The one thing that the movie does get right, even though it's a stereotype, is that the men here go out looking for sex, and there's no real emotional component to it, while the women form emotional relationships first with potential partners, and the sex is part of the equation, sure, but it's more like an afterthought.
But the whole thing sort of runs off the rails when the barista who's competing with Rick for Leigh's affections starts busting up their car windows outside the motel where Rick's babysitter's aunt is trying to seduce Fred because she thinks he's Rick...meanwhile Grace has a car accident and the whole thing turns into a giant ridiculous chase scene with everyone speeding from Providence to Cape Cod. Slapstick takes over at some point, which is a shame when we were getting so close to exploring the mysteries of spouse-approved infidelities. We're just never going to progress as a species if we consistently keep settling for the cheap jokes.
I want to believe this was based on some kind of French film, because those French couples cheat on each other all the time, and they all seem to find a way to deal with it. And then I could believe that some American filmmakers tried to re-make it for U.S. audiences and screwed it all up. But I don't think that's the case. Let's face it, collectively we'll just never be as cool as the French are.
Also starring Owen Wilson (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy"), Jenna Fischer (last seen in "The Giant Mechanical Man"), Nicky Whelan, Joy Behar (last seen in "Gilbert"), Bruce Thomas, Alexandra Daddario (last seen in "San Andreas"), Alyssa Milano (last seen in "Little Italy"), Derek Waters (last seen in "Paper Heart"), Kristin Carey, Tyler Hoechlin (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!!"), Stephen Merchant (last seen in "Jojo Rabbit"), J.B. Smoove (last seen in "Top Five"), Larry Joe Campbell (last seen in "Killers"), Richard Jenkins (last seen in "Happythankyoumoreplease"), Rob Moran (last seen in "Movie 43"), Lauren Bowles (last seen in "The Heartbreak Kid"), Dwight Evans, Bo Burnham (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Christa Campbell (last seen in "Sisters"), Macsen Lintz, Carly Craig (last seen in "Dumb and Dumber To"), Danny Murphy (ditto), Kaliko Kauahi, Andrew Wilson (last seen in "Father Figures"), with a cameo from Kathy Griffin (last seen in "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work")
RATING: 5 out of 10 horrible pick-up lines
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