BY MIKEY MIGO
The Farrelly brothers aren’t typically “hit or miss”, but rather “smash hit or shit”. It’s mostly their first few movies that keep them in business. They put out “Dumb and Dumber”, “Kingpin”, “There’s Something About Mary”, “Outside Providence” and “Me, Myself and Irene”. Then the rest of the movies with their involvement vary in quality, but never quite manage to make it to the level of those first few movies. Still, I think we all keep giving them “passes” so to speak. Yeah… pun intended. This is all a footnote really. If a movie looks good, it looks good. I didn’t automatically know it was a Farrelly movie at first. I saw Stephen Merchant, JB Smoove, Richard Jenkins, Jenna Fischer, Jason Sudeikis, Owen Wilson, and a slew of others in the trailer. I enjoy those folks work and the jokes in the trailer were amusing. It centers around two couples. Owen Wilson and Jenna Fischer are having passion troubles while Sudekis and Applegate are just having all sorts of issues as they’re the “wacky friend couple” in this. The situation is that the wives give their husbands a week long “hall pass” to do whatever they want, sleep with whoever, and all that stuff. Mild amusement ensues. Owen Wilson coasts through this movie and by the time it ends you don’t really care what he does or who he does it too. Sudeikis is a one note character. I was excited to see him get a co-starring role, but sadly it got old quick and it wasn’t really much of a co-star role. Their other friends are just there. They’re all funny and entertaining, but they do nothing to add to the story. The women were lame too. Jenna Fischer is beautiful, funny, and easy to watch. She just doesn’t have ANY personality. Applegate is over the top, but didn’t hit any marks. There was just something about this movie that didn’t connect right. This film had a really cool cast, a really cool idea, and really cool potential. Sadly, it was really forgettable. Do you hate it when they put all the best parts in the trailer? Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened here. I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think I could say I “liked it”. It was amusing enough for one viewing, but the two or three genuine laugh out loud moments doesn’t make me want to recommend it. If you’re curious, give it a shot with low expectations. If you were hesitant you can rest easy knowing your gut feeling was just. B-
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