Parents' Guide to

Hall Pass

By S. Jhoanna Robledo, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Farrellys' film about infidelity has both raunch and heart.

Movie R 2011 106 minutes
Hall Pass Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 15+

Based on 18 parent reviews

Mac Everett
Mac Everett Parent of 4, 5, 13 and 18-year-old
August 2, 2022
age 5+

Not inappropriate at all

Great movie not bad at all 5 year olds will love it and grow up wanting a hall pass.
charles B.
charles B. Adult
March 25, 2018
age 18+

Modern movies kill me even by their own standards

I think the hot tube scene in this movie is abosulty and x rating I don't understand how they can show male genitals hard or soft and still have an r rating it blows my mind . they would never and have never showed female genitalia on the big screen its always coverd up with fake hair oh yeah look it up its the truth or it is to far away to make it out .if the man in the scene had his dick and balls tucked between his legs and all you saw was his pubes I bet nobody would feel like they saw a dick so why do man put up with this shit I could give a shit less about how much nudity is in a movie. But I would at least like to be warned about what I'm about to watch and I would like to see equal representation of female and male genitals in movies because for the past few years it has been deffenatly lopsided
See all 18 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Lifelong friends Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) have grass-is-greener syndrome; even though they love their wives, Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate), they can't stop checking out other women and imagining what it would be like to bed them. After one humiliation too many, the women decide to give their husbands a one-week "hall pass," allowing them to step out of their marriages for seven days and pursue whatever -- and whomever -- they want. Little do they realize that the hall pass applies to their wives, too... Chaos ensues when everyone attempts to embrace the notion of freedom, only to realize that love and marriage are more complicated than their "simple" plan.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (18):
Kids say (20):

HALL PASS is a foul-mouthed, raunchy, ridiculous, sometimes gross, and inevitably funny movie. It goes all out with jokes inspired by bodily functions gone awry and situations played strictly and outrageously for laughs. In enough moments, it manages to carry it all off, primarily because the humor is so brazen that you're shocked into submission (though one particular scene involving full-frontal nudity is just on this side of too much). But there are also plenty of groan-worthy scenes that could just have easily been left on the cutting room floor. The tired, sexist jokes about wives should have been relegated there, too, as well as one (or two or three) scatological jokes.

Without Wilson, this comedy would be insufferable; somehow, he makes it sort of likeable. The actor -- who has played enough eternal-bachelors-gone-good -- now does doting dad and distracted husband quite well. His transformation actually seems plausible. But as funny as he is, Sudeikis' Fred is overdone: He's a callous, crass, hormone-driven character who doesn't quite come across as genuinely changed when his arc comes to its (formulaic) end. The movie could also have done with fewer predictably quirky friends and engineered-to-be-nutty moments. Credit goes to the Farrelly brothers for handling the wives' response to the hall pass with some complexity, but in the end, the movie doesn't quite earn a proverbial pass for its transgressions.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how the movie depicts marriage and relationships. Do you think something like this could happen in real life? Parents, talk to your teens about your own values when it comes to marriage and commitment.

  • Does the film stereotype husbands and wives? Does it add any nuance to the battle of the sexes?

  • Does the movie need all of the swearing, sex, etc. to be funny? Does any of the humor cross the line? Who decides where that line falls?

Movie Details

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