Hall Pass is a 2011 comedy film from the Farrelly Brothers, starring Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, and Christina Applegate.
The film follows two friends, Rick and Fred, who are both granted by their wives a "hall pass", which is a week off from their respective marriages so that they can sleep with any woman they want guilt-free in order to rid them of their obsession with sex.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Brent to Leigh.
- All Men Are Perverts: The premise of the movie; two guys are obsessed with sex, and realizing this, their wives decide to give them the titular "Hall Pass": A week off from marriage during which they can have sex with other women.
- Ambiguously Gay: Gary. While he's married, this comes especially in the ending, when his wife suggests they do the hall pass, and he has an Imagine Spot in which doing so causes a chain of events that ends with him getting thrown into jail and getting anally raped. He still decides they should try it out.
- Weirdly implied with Rick's toddler-aged son, Gunnar, since Rick briefly imagines him as an adult marrying another man.
- Casanova Wannabe: Rick and Fred have a really hard time picking up girls. Rick in fact only has success with Leigh, a woman he had met some time beforehand.
- Cool Old Guy: Coakley (Richard Jenkins), the man who mentors Rick and Fred on the art of picking up women.
- Cringe Comedy: The guys' activities during the "week off" given by the hall pass. When they decide to play golf, they get too high from eating hash brownies and wreak havoc on the golf course. When they decide to get drunk in order to act more relaxed, they end up going too far and getting into a fight with other bar customers. And then there's Rick and Fred's whole ordeal when they think that they are finally going to get some.
- Divorce Is Temporary: The film's main premise, albeit deliberately invoked.
- Fan Disservice:
- Two naked men arrive to pull Rick from the hot tub after he loses feeling in his muscles. We get a greeeeat close-up of a guy with an exceptionally small manhood.
- There's also the girl whom Fred picks up; she sneezes out something extra...
- Imagine Spot:
- Rick imagines what would happen if he bought alcohol for/hooked up with his kids' babysitter, who is a week from turning 21. He imagines getting arrested, being fired from his job, divorced, and being unwanted at his kids' weddings.
- Gary imagines how life for him would be if he got a hall pass. It doesn't end well ...or does it.
- Male Gaze: Rick and Fred do this so obviously that their wives notice it even when they act innocent.
- Ms. Fanservice: Leigh, and maybe Paige as well (Paige is played by Alexandra Daddario, after all).
- Refuge in Audacity: This is a Farrelly Brothers film, so obviously...
- Safe Driving Aesop: Grace gets into a car crash because she looks at her phone while driving.
- The Sociopath: Brent. His response to someone hooking up with the girl he was interested, even though he himself never actually asked her out? Vandalize his car. His response to someone having sex with his mother (or thinking he had)? Try to shoot the guy dead.
- The Stinger: Gary's wife sees how happy the other wives are and suggests she and Gary do the hall pass. He imagines sleeping with an Asian woman whose husband finds out, and then ends up killing him, the woman, her grandmother, and a few teen witnesses, ending with him getting arrested, thrown into jail and raped. He still decides they should try it out.
