[5] Family-Faith Film Review: Hall Pass
By Catholic Office of Film and Broadcasting [6]
Hall Pass — Directors and co-writers Peter and Bobby Farrelly take a low-road journey through contemporary marital mores as two sex-obsessed suburban husbands (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) are given permission by their exasperated mates (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) to ignore their wedding vows for a week. Though the primary joke in the brothers’ script (penned in collaboration with Pete Jones and Kevin Barnett) concerns how little productive use the would-be studs make of their supposed freedom — an arrangement referred to by the slang phrase of the title — at least two instances of flat-out infidelity are treated as minor, if regrettable, indiscretions. A juvenile view of human sexuality also prevails throughout. The relentlessly vulgar bedroom banter is interspersed, on occasion, by repellant sight gags. Strong sexual content including adultery, a homosexual rape, masturbation, full nudity and pervasive coarse dialogue, drug use, graphic scatological humor, much rough and crude language. O — morally offensive. (R) 2011