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'Hall Pass' sets the bar very low

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011 | 01:47 PM

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In school, a hall pass usually meant a trip to the restroom. "Hall Pass," the movie, also means a trip to the toilet -- to flush this inane excuse for a comedy so it never sees the light of day.

There is so much wrong with this latest flop from the directing team of Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, it's easier to list what's right: Nothing.

Although the list is endless, here are a few lowlights from this miserable mess.

Let's start with the concept. Two guys who couldn't get lucky in a women's prison for the blind -- Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) -- are given a hall pass from their marriages for a week. They are free to do anything they want.

It should come as no shock that the script was written by men -- the Farrelly brothers and Pete Jones -- because this kind of plotline only exists in bad buddy sitcoms and the letters to Penthouse magazine. You can almost hear the beer drinking and gas passing as the story unfolds.

Comedy
Running time: 1hr 38min
Rated: R for crude and sexual humor throughout, language, some graphic nudity and drug use.
 
Cast: Owen Wilson, Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, Jenna Fischer, Alexandra Daddario
Directed by: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Written by: Bobby Farrelly, Kevin Barnett

GRADE: F
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The idea might work if the script included at least one original joke. At one point, the hall pass husbands and their three moronic friends get high eating marijuana-filled brownies. That gag is so old it gets a monthly Social Security check.

Then there's a joke about self- gratification. If you can't come up with an idea that's better than "American Pie," don't even go there.

It's as if every joke was written by a 12-year-old boy who just saw his first dirty magazine. There are efforts to get laughs out of long shots of male genitalia, explosive diarrhea and a man using a golf course sand trap like a litter box.

The jokes are delivered by a cast that seems more concerned with collecting a paycheck than turning in an iota of acting. Wilson's bland, Sudeikis is amateurish, Jenna Fischer's lost and Christina Applegate's desperate.

Richard Jenkins has the only interesting role as an aging gigolo, but he looks like he agreed to be in the movie because of some sort of community service sentence.

As if the lame jokes and pathetic characters weren't bad enough, there's blatant product placement in "Hall Pass." Applebee's, Five Guys and McDonald's get plugs. The worst is a Coke truck parked outside a hospital emergency room at 4 a.m.

There was a time -- with the 1998 movie "There's Something About Mary" -- when the Farrelly brothers showed a great knack at being maverick comedy directors. Since then their careers have circled the toilet with "Stuck on You," "Fever Pitch" and this latest disaster.

It's time to give the directors a hall pass from directing. It's the only humane thing to do.


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TV and movie critic Rick Bentley can be reached at rbentley@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6355. Read his blog at fresnobeehive.com.

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