Hall Pass

Hall Pass finds sibling directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly still wallowing in the kind of sophomoric muck that made them rich and famous in the '90s with films such as There's Something About Mary and other lowbrow but amusing outings. Here, forty-ish pals Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) both have attractive, loving wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate), but they're also a pair of doofuses on the cusp of midlife crises, and after their spouses catch them checking out other women's butts and generally acting like idiots once too often, they decide to offer them “hall passes”—a week during which the men can pretend they're not married while the women head for Cape Cod (no questions asked). Fred expects to bed young hotties with come-ons like “You must be from Ireland, 'cause when I look at you my penis is Dublin.” But Rick seems genuinely nonplussed by the attentions of the attractive young woman who works at the local coffeehouse, and he isn't sure that this temporary freedom is a good thing. The point, not surprisingly, is that the grass isn't always greener (even if there's a topless barista on the other side), but it's mostly buried under the Farrellys' usual onslaught of vulgarity, including masturbation jokes and scatological gross-outs—some of which are funny, but most are merely dumb. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include an additional scene (4 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is an extended cut of the film, a gag reel (2 min.), bonus DVD and digital copies of the film, and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a small extras package for a so-so comedy.] (S. Graham)